Endeavor to Persevere

Here it is, 2007 , and the Cable News has a developing story, a banner across the bottom of the screen proclaims : THE HUNT FOR OBAMA and in the background there's a grainy video of Osama bin Forgottin.
There are a great many other words on the screen but they move too rapidly for me to even attempt to decipher them- but I do see THE HUNT FOR OBAMA quite clearly...

Hmm...

Don't they mean THE HUNT FOR OSAMA?

cut to commercials...this ad...it's a woman touching herself, she's seemingly naked on a field of white and her soft voice rises as she orgasmically hawks some product or service-I don't know what she's selling...what a jarring interlude, this odd sensuality trapped between the snippets of carnage and portents of doom that...it's sad that this weirdly beautiful 30 second spot exists solely to help sell detergent. Or insurance. Or toasters.
Like I said, I have no idea what she was selling...

The news comes back, this time the "Developing Story" is corrected:THE HUNT FOR BIN LADEN.
Geez...bin Laden? That's so 2001, the news should have more pressing concerns- our President certainly doesn't seem to give a shit about finding bin Laden, so why should we?- let's see, Gerald Ford, James Brown and Saddam Hussein are still dead- how can the news be running low on material?

At one point it was almost impossible for me to watch the James Brown tributes because they kept getting interrupted by pictures of a hearse, presumably carrying a Presidential cadaver, which in turn was interrupted to bring me updates on Saddam's Deathwatch...beneath it all , there was this constant stream of fast words, quick , elusive text, subtitles within subtitles; is this how we are trained to think?
No wonder tranquilizers are so popular.

So what's the Osama Scoop?

Get this: No one knows where he is. He might be in Pakistan or maybe not.

This is a Developing Story? I could have told you that in 2005. Or 2006.
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Happy New Year to Slovenia! You have until 2016 to exchange your tolars for euros.
I understand that the paper notes will be honored indefinitely.

(oops, I was misinformed- better hurry!)
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Did you know Gerald Ford is dead? True.
Did you know Richard Nixon's favorite food was cottage cheese and catsup? True.
Did you know Ford's first Presidential Order was :" Stop serving cottage cheese and catsup!"? All true.
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Oh yeah- we have a whole new war to ignore. Ethiopia has kicked the shit out of the Somali Islamists- Ethiopia is not a nation known for it's wealth, but it has somehow managed to acquire devastating and expensive military technology- I wonder where they got those attack helicopters?
eBay?
The displaced Islamists will disappear into the shadows and become tomorrow's terrorists/insurgents and life in Mogadishu will continue to be hellish, brutal and violent- quite a bit like Baghdad except without headlines to remind us it's there.

I guess you could say it's more like Afghanistan than Iraq.

I just saw a one-minute "news" report about how you can upload pictures of your dog straight from a cell phone to the Interweb.
Yowzah. Who knew?

Not one word about Afghanistan or Ethiopia.
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Iraq is back in the news- did you know that Saddam is dead?
So are at least 3,000 American Troops.
Fair trade? You decide.

Our President says he's going to make a decision about Iraq eventually, maybe sorta...
I have full confidence that whatever decision he makes will be the absolutely worst, ill-considered move possible- probably leading to an unwinnable war against Iran.
He's not very smart, our Glorious Leader, but he is consistent.