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Break out the straitjackets!
March us to the loony bin!
By MURRY FRYMER
of TheColumnists.com
It’s not easy to write columns when you become convinced that we’re all crazy. Who are you writing for? Who are you writing to?
In my recent years I have become convinced that we are all crazy. I fought off the conviction for years assuming I was not assessing my observations with enough insight. Surely, we couldn’t all be nuts. There had to be exceptions. For example: me. But I realize that we could all point fingers at each other. I watch what is going on around me and shake my head in horror. But the head I am shaking isn’t on all that tight. There may be pockets of sanity--my two kittens, for example, make a lot of sense, loving and being loved, eating, pooping, sleeping contentedly. But who among humans settles for that?
This whole Iraq debacle is being discussed endlessly. I guess it has to be because every day some maniacs around Baghdad set off enormous explosives meant to kill --Americans, Iraqis, the bombers themselves. Why do those bombers want to die so horribly? Are they nuts?
An Arab woman blew up an Israeli bus killing men, women and children. And herself. She leaves three tiny children behind who are now without a mother. Yes, she had her reasons, but what if, say, she had changed her mind and lived and loved her children? Would that, perhaps, have served a better purpose? When your purpose to to kill yourself in order to kill a handful of strangers, what sanity is there in that?
And while all this is going on, Americans are up in arms. Not about all the dying, so much, it appears. They were horrified, instead, to see Janet Jackson’s right breast, from a distance of about 100 yards during halftime at the Super Bowl. On a medium that shows breasts every night, Ms. Jackson’s breast has become a national outrage. Why, for God’s sake? How come Diane Keaton is not a national outrage in her latest film, but instead an Oscar nominee? She fully exposes herself and it is not from 100 yards away.
And now we are debating George W. Bush’s National Guard attendance. I was in the Reserves once and I did everything I could to cut short that adventure. As did everybody in my group. Going to National Guard meetings is not an act of heroism and not going is not an act of cowardice. What the hell is this all about?
Though Mr. Bush’s decision to go to war because Saddam Hussein might some day be threatening seems kind of….well, nuts. Thousands have died, including 535 American soldiers. What for? And most of those men just had signed up for the National Guard or the Reserves hoping to skip meetings. How could they have foreseen where that decision would lead them.
And why is this Scott Peterson trial continuing to occupy American interest? For Christ's sake, it’s nutty. So many people are getting murdered every day, yet the press keeps this one case going month after month after month.
And speaking of Christ’s sake, I can’t believe the issue of whether the Jews killed Jesus is back in the headlines. I don’t--absolutely don’t--want to hear this debated once again. For those religionists who hold onto this theory, OK, fine. I assure them that none of the Jews of 20 A.D. are still around. Meanwhile the Crusades and such have killed millions of Jews since. Can’t we call it even?
The Pakistanis and the Indians are threatening each other, like, yeah, and the good Doctor Dean vows to battle Lt. Kerry till the cows come home or the fat lady sings. She’s coming in loud and clear, it seems. He’s not hearing things clearly.
And Doctor Atkins died fat and his estate sells thin. And Martha Stewart did what most of us would do--getting a tip that her stock in Imclone was going to fall, she sold it. And now that could send her to jail, while most of the scoundrels at World Com and Enron are out on their yachts. It is like giving a death sentence for jaywalking and allowing Charles Manson to walk.
None of this is making any sense, except of course, if the whole world were crazy. What other conclusion can you come up with?
As for me, I am trying to make sense of it and that is the craziest thing of all. My neighbors drive SUVs that take up the entire street, just to go to the supermarket. Porn is the biggest success on the internet. Jayson Blair lied for years to his employers at the New York Times and now he is the author of what is being called a best-seller. Sure, buy the book and believe every line.
They check everybody’s suitcase at the airport but do not check cargoes on ships. Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton are running for President as if their election was even a remote possibility. President Clinton actually thought he could get away with blow-jobs in the Oval Office from a world-class gossip. Ronald Reagan insisted he didn’t dye his hair.
And me? I am trying to learn from my kittens, but it isn’t easy. They are not insane like the rest of us.
©2004
by Murry Frymer. The Murry
Frymer caricature is ©2000 by Jim Hummel.
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