It Burns

Someone I Know, she works with a woman who draws a paycheck for pretty much nothing more than babbling ceaselessly, senselessly, uncontrollably; occasionally spinning her head round 360 degrees; now and then erupting into Tourette’s-like cursing at all and sundry.

This woman, she is like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Except she does not projectile-vomit green bile, or plunge a crucifix in and out of her vagina. At least not publicly.

With Halloween coming on, I suggested to the Someone I Know that she festoon her office with this wonderment, identified by the descriptive-dullards at eBay as “Halloween Animated Exorcist Spinning Head Linda Blair Sounds Decoration Prop,” and presented to you-all there in the image to the right. The thing, its “head rotates 360 degrees, the eyes light up and the mouth moves,” it “plays (6) audio tracks and the Exorcist theme from the movie,” and “spoken phrases include ‘it burns’; ‘keep away, the sow is mine’; and ‘I can’t sleep, my bed is shaking.’”

But the Someone I Know, she demurred, reasoning that bringing the outre object into the office—it would just encourage her coworker, to further rotate her head, and spew stupidness across the land.

Oh well. I tried.

Tonight, I am trying again.

Having witnessed this day Secretary of State John Kerry—he of the once and future “how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”—rotate his head and spit green bile and slide a crucifix in and out of his urethra, as he ululated screamingly about Bad Chemicals in Syria.

Even as Foreign Policy printed a timely piece about how, back in the day, the United States of Reaganoids were only too happy to assist Iraq, in hosing down brown people, with chemical agents.

Even as the US was blearily emerging from a week which witnessed the conclusion of a dizzying confluence of legal proceedings in re one of the more recent American imperial adventurings in “how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

Wherein first Chelsea Manning received 35 years, for telling the truth; though, telling, wasn’t it, that there was an acquittal, on the charge involving the release of the war-crime video of an airstrike on Afghan civilians.

Then the driven-mad Fort Hood psychiatrist, who would rather mass-kill, than be deployed to Afghanistan, convicted on something like eleventy-billion murder and attempted-murder charges.

Finally, there was the hoorah, he who cut a deal whereby he would escape the death penalty by saying “I’m sorry” for shooting up an Afghan village. Apparently, this man, he was “bummed,” he was “stressed,” about “personal problems.” News to me, and to many, that murdering Afghans is a recognized outlet for relieving stress and ameliorating bummedness.

Meanwhile Sean Klannity, there on the radio, was yammering today, in re Syria, about “therapeutic bombing.”

At first, I assumed he was joking. I mean, I know the language is going straight to Hell. But there must be some limits. No one could seriously employ a term like “therapeutic bombing.”

But no. I was wrong. Klannity, he is on it, and he is for it.