Archive for September 17th, 2002
We decided to go to Goodberry’s tonight. Goodberry’s, for those of you who don’t know, which of course would be almost all of you, is a fancy ice cream stand. So fancy in fact, that they don’t sell homemade ice cream, they sell homemade frozen custard. Don’t ask me what the difference is, I don’t know. I do know that whatever technical category of frozen foodstuff is fits into, it is above all a license to print money. The custard is incredible, and it’s always crowded. I could drop by in the middle of a gray December day, with a heavy rain and a temperature under 40 degrees, and I’d have to wait in line for my custard. The one closest to our house is in Cary, known regionally as C.A.R.Y.(Containment Area for Relocated Yuppies), for reasons that are obvious once one exits the car at the High House road Goodberry’s. Everyone is blonde and sleek, or weathered and sleek, or young and sleek. The gourmet imported organic sea salt of the earth.
Ngnat loves it. There are always little kids there, and non-threatening adults, who for all their sleekness, always notice and compliment her on her favorite shoes, the purple pair that light up when she walks. So she gets to play with the kids, and talk to the adults, and she gets to eat ice cream “i keem!” and surf the resultant sugar high.
She also likes to watch the staff. The stand follows what is apparently some architectural law of ice cream stands, in that the entire top half of the building is glass, so that the staff is under constant surveillance by the world outside, as if in the days before ice cream was served from a transparent venue, horrid things were done by perverts to your banana split.
“She wants extra nuts on her banana split? By God, I’ll show her extra nuts!……Here you go, Miz Anderson. Ya’ll have a nice night now, hear?…Goldamn razzafrazzin old biddy, hope she chokes on it.”
So each time we finally wend our way to the front of the Yuppie gauntlet, I perch her up up on the burnished steel rail that runs the length of the storefront, so that she can squat down and peer at the staff as tend to the gigantic metal machines as they fill our order.
Have I mentioned we’re in the midst of potty training? Foster’s, Australian for beer. Squatting, toddler for time to pee.
Literally one second after I start to place our order, I feel the warmth on my leg and hear the splatter, like rain on the bricks, of daughter pee. Oh, joy.
The ladies behind me notice too. “Aw, look, isn’t that cute! Honey, look!”
I’m not sure if the girl behind the counter knows what’s going on, but I manage to hand the daughter off to the wife. Not the sainted wife, not now. After all, HER daughter just peed all over me in public. Good things, my daughter. Bad things, her daughter, and her fault, too. Give me time, I’ll figure out why.
So off they rushed, back to the car to dry off and put on a diaper, while I stand there, big ole stain on my shorts, complete the order and attempt to play off the entire situation to the fiftyish golf foursome behind me.
“You know, normally she scream’s PEE-PEE at the top of her voice”, I say, waving my hands in the air by way of illustration.
They smile politely and kind of edge away, but at least they’re not talking about how cute it is anymore. I move off to the side to await the fulfillment of my order. There’s a big puddle of pee right in front of the order window. The guy behind me, the silverback of the golf course, is standing in it. Nice shoes. Italian, I think. I start to feel a little better.
“Daddy!” The wife’s dried Ngnat off. She’s running back up the walkway. “I hep you wi i keem!” The extra emergency diapers have been put on, but not the extra emergency shorts. A later investigation by a sub-committee of the house would bring to light the fact that there were no extra emergency shorts available, but that happens later on. Right now there’s this pantsless redneck trailer baby running up the walk and calling me “Daddy”. And her mother’s letting her! She let her come out in public without any pants on!
“Aw, look, isn’t that cute! Honey, look!”
I regret to say that I scooped up the child, handed her over to her mother, and demanded, in a low whisper, that they get back into the car right now. I did not need any help with the ice cream, I would bring them the ice cream, and we would eat it in the car, and then we would drive home and never return.
Later, as I sat in the front seat with my raspberry custard, wet walnuts and chocolate sprinkles of shame, Ngnat leaned in from the back where she was sitting with her mother.
“Tank you fa i keem, daddy.” she said, and gave me a sticky kiss.
“It was no trouble, honey.”
RSVP requested
Get your invitation to the war yet?
Whoops!
Well, as Gomer might say, “Surprise, surprise surprise!”. George accepted the argument that the U.S. needed to go through the United Nations before attacking Iraq, and now it’s come back and bitten him in the ass. As I said before, all the U.N. can do is provide a fig leaf of international approval, but the fig leaf isn’t for our benefit. It is solely for the benefit of the U.N., in the hopes that in future we will look to put on the fig leaf before we do anything, that in the absence of the fig leaf we will do nothing.
Now, Bill Quick points out that from the administration’s viewpoint, this is so much window dressing, and I agree. The initial announcement that we would be seeking United Nations’ resolutions before we started, not bombing Iraq, since we’re apparently doing that everyday, so perhaps invading was in all likelihood just for domestic and foreign political consumption. The problem lies in the fact that now that the U.N. has gotten us to do the first thing on its list, “Ask for the fig leaf.”, it can now proceed to the second item, “Prevent the U.S. from acting without it.” The U.S. is proposing a resolution to the Security Council that will give us the cover to attack Iraq, and the Iraqi proposal to allow inspections will likely sink it.
Here’s the current membership of the security Council. Russia and China have already stated that there is now need for a new resolution, and France wants two resolutions, one for inspections now, or perhaps next month, and one after Iraq is shown to still be resisting inspections to authorize the use of force later on. Aside from the fact that the U.S. resolution could simply be vetoed, how many of the current members will even support the U.S. resolution? Britain, perhaps Colombia and Mexico, but there’s no one else there we can count on.
What the media fails to report, and probably doesn’t even see, and that the ultimate aims of Saddam and the U.N. dovetail. We already know that the United Nations would prefer that we not attack, that’s why George told them to put or shut up. What our situation with the U.N. boils down to is this; The United Nations will agree to the process, because as long as we’re involved in the process, we’re not attacking. It’s in the interest of the U.N. to keep us in the process because that enhances the power and stature of the U.N. Diplomats are at heart procrastinators, because they never know when conditions might change to favor their side. Therefore they draw out negotiations as long as possible in the hope that the conditions change.
Saddam wants nothing more than to prevent a U.S. attack, and if he can’t prevent it, then he needs to delay it for as long as possible, in hopes that the underlying conditions change. He cannot at the moment do anything to oppose us militarily, but he can do things diplomatically to slow down an attack until conditions change in his favor. The longer the process takes the more likely this is. He’ll be happy to allow inspectors in, after the two weeks or so it takes to co-ordinate it. At that point Iraqi cgoes back to the game of harassing, misleading and stalling them until they leave again. This took up years last time Saddam played this game. He can certainly get a year out of it this time.
A year or so gives the internal opposition in Britain and America time to grow, and while this might not affect President Bush, but it could certainly affect Prime Minister Blair, keeping Britain from an active role in the attacks. There’s also the chance that Saddam could get the bomb in the next couple of months, after which the conventional wisdom dictates that he can thumb his nose at the world. I think the conventional wisdom is full of it, that the moment Saddam has the bomb he’s got to use it or lose it, because the minute he announces he’s got he’s signed Iraq’s death sentence. The only question in my mind is whether Israel nukes him before we do.
What the media also fails to note is the peculiar timing of this story, Saudis May Allow U.S. Use of Bases. Let’s see, Saudi Arabia announces that we can use their air bases for an attack on Iraq, as long as a U.N.. resolution authorizes us to do so, and less than 8 hours later, Iraq seriously gums up the works needed to produce such a resolution. This wasn’t a case of the Saudi’s finally coming around and putting pressure on Iraq, this was a case of the Saudi’s being in communication with Iraq and knowing beforehand what was coming. The House of Saud positioned itself in such a way that it can appear to once again be a U.S. ally without actually having to do a damn thing, and no one is calling them on it.
Update: Glenn Frazier also thinks Saddam’s playing for time.
Perfect Job (part I)
We spend so much of our lives working that it is important to find just the right occupation in order for us to be happy………….I think my search may be over. No, I am not going to say gynecologist or porn star, instead something that will allow me to work with people and get really, really hammered.
The official title of the position is called a “Leaner” and the instructions are simple. Let’s say a beer distributor, perhaps Natural Light, hires you as a leaner. It is your responsibility to go to bars or other hangouts where people are drinking, lean into a crowd and say something like, “Hey, isn’t Natural Light the greatest?,” to which someone may reply “I don’t drink it.” Your response would then be “Hey bartender, give me a round of Natural Lights for me and my new friends!”
Can you imagine? You get to drink and make friends by buying everyone drinks. The possibilities are endless and I swear I am not making this up. I’m sure I’m qualified. I like people (some of them) and I like beer. Lean on me!!!