Monday, December 26, 2016

It's A Wonderful Legacy

Somewhere... in the cosmos...
 
"You sent for me, sir?
"Yes, Clarence. A man down on Earth needs our help."
"Splendid! Maybe then, sir, maybe then I'll get my wings?"

     It was Christmas Eve and President Obama was sitting in the Oval Office brooding. Come the new year, he would be out and a new president would be sworn in, but there was so much left to do.
     So much left to do.
     Like every president who served before him, he worried about his legacy these last few days in public office. Was he too hard on Israel? Too easy on radical Islam? Should he have secured the border and fixed the ailing economy? Was it wise to bring potential terrorists possibly disguised as political refugees into the country?
     Well, it was too late now. History would judge him by the results of his efforts, not by the nobility of his intentions.
     "Oh, my," a voice said. "Aren't we sad."
     Obama jumped.
     "Who are you?" he yelped. "How did you get in here?"
     Obama knew his words were weak, but they were all he had.
     "I'm Clarence," the little man said. "Your guardian angel."
     "Oh..." Obama said, getting his self-assurance back, "my guardian angel. Why didn't you say so? HELP! HELP! SECURITY!"
     "Your secret service cannot hear you."
     "Are they frozen in time?"
     "No, they're busy watching Little Lupe videos. She reminds them of the good times they used to have at the Hotel Caribe in Cartegena, Columbia."
     Obama shrugged in defeat. He knew it was true.
     "Well, what do you want? What do you want from the most powerful man in the world?"
     "Just a few moments of your time. Come," the rumpled man said. "Come with me to the future."
      Obama thought for a second, remembering a conservation he once had with string-theory physicist Dr. Michio Kaku, and then asked, "Is it really our future or just one of many possible futures?"
     Clarence closed his eyes, and then spoke sagely.
     "Always in motion, is the future," he said. "Difficult to see."
     Obama lifted a skeptical eyebrow.
     "You're quoting Yoda?"
     "Quote Star Wars, I must. Ye-esss, hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee."

     The rumpled man hobbled over to one section of the office and opened the false wall, a hidden exit in case of emergencies. Obama thought he was the only one who knew about its existence, but apparently not. Beyond the opening it was blurry, hazy. A mist billowed off the ground about three feet. Obama wasn't sure if he should go any further.
     "Barry!" came a barking at the door proper. It was his wife, Michelle. "I know you're in there, Barry! Quit crying and come to bed!"
     "Hey! Wait for me!" Clarence cried out, as the president ran past him into the unknown.
     Obama stood there, on the other side. On the other side of what? he thought to himself. Obama looked around. All he could see were shifting images, moving past and melding into each other. It was a visual whirlpool of displaced perceptions, all of it swirling around him. He was at a focal point, but a focal point of what, exactly?
     "Of time," Clarence explained, finally catching up. "Einstein once said that time was created so everything wouldn't happen at once. Well, this is where everything happens at once."
     "I understand," Obama said, not understanding.
     "Follow me," the little man said, walking in one direction.
     "Okay," Obama agreed, walking in the other.
     "NO! This way!"
     "I am going that way."
     "No, you're not."
     "Yes, I am."
     Frustrated, Clarence followed the president. Ultimately, it led them to one of their destinations. It could have been one of the bombed out European cities during World War Two, or it could have been Ground Zero on 9-11, but it was Israel of the future. Crumbling buildings. rubble on the streets, the smell of death and sewage in the air.
     "Where are we?" Obama wanted to know.
     "Tel Aviv," Clarence told him. "The Palestinians were finally true to Iran's President Amanindajon's vow to destroy Israel."
     "It can't be," the president said, on the verge of an actual emotion.
     "But it is," Clarence told him. "Follow me."
     "Okay," Obama said, and again moved in the opposite direction.
     Clarence sighed, and then ran to catch up. they found themselves in another bombed-out husk of a building. The dead littered the floor. The living cried and screamed for help.
     "Where are we now?" Obama asked, but deep down he didn't really want to know.
     "Do you really want to know?" Clarence asked, as if reading his mind.
     "Not really," Obama told him. "Didn't you read the previous paragraph?"
     "Besides," Clarence continued, "I believe in your heart you know where we are. Still, I'll tell you anyway. It's America. One of your sanctuary cities. with your lax immigration policies, open borders, and influx of tens of thousands of refugees from countries sworn to destroy America, this is the result. You can't embrace a belief system that wants to kill you. Now, please, follow me."
     This time Obama followed, and he saw an America with doctors on street corners holding up "Will Heal For Food" signs. There were Planned Parenthood offices advertising, "Abortions! Two For The Price Of One!" Hospitals were forced to perform free gender-reassignment surgeries.
     He saw a vast global government running the world, their IRS agents dressed like Nazi OSS officers, and our American soldiers reduced to sweeping the streets of foreign cities, chanting, "A clean street is a safe street."
     Cities were in bankruptcy from supporting the homeless, the jobless, the American citizenship-less. Walmarts were closed, churches shuttered, and unemployment and welfare offices full. It was a society where only the bodyguards of politicians and celebrities were allowed to have guns. Obama saw people lined up to become Democrats, because without the "mark" of the liberal they couldn't conduct business.
     "There, Mr. President," Obama's guardian angel spoke, "there's your future. What do you think of your legacy now?"
     Obama wiped away a tear.
     "It's wonderful," he said.
 

 
American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.BlogSpot.com
RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com
@JimDuchene
as published in Desert Exposure Magazine
 

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

America's The Problem

In a world where the Taliban throws acid in the faces of young girls and women to keep them from going to school or getting an education, it's refreshing to read a newspaper article about Muslim women in the United States learning how to defend themselves against Americans.
     When a press-hog like the then-15-year-old Muslim schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai grabs all the headlines for having the good fortune of being shot in the head (for being an education advocate in the Muslim country of Pakistan), let's all remember she survived what should have been a fatal gunshot. Besides, she didn't choose to be shot. In fact, given the choice, I'm sure she would have chosen not to have been shot.
     What kind of hero is that?
     Even the Nobel Prize committee, while nominating her for their Peace Prize, didn't feel she deserved to win. Instead they gave it to President Obama for... for...
     Well, I really don't know what for, but whatever it was, I'm sure he deserved it.
     Here's an excerpt of that newspaper article by Max Nesterak of Minnesota Public Radio (with additional commentary added by me).
 
     ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA--With the number of hate crimes targeting Muslims on the rise in the U.S., some Muslim-Americans are responding by taking self-defense courses.

Cemse Allak was a pregnant 35-year-old Muslim woman in Turkey. She was stoned to death by her brother and 4 other relatives. She remained semi-conscious for 7 months with her skull crushed, but her unborn baby died 6 weeks after the attack. It was alleged that she committed adultery, but it was more likely that she was raped.
Her brother said it didn't matter either way.
 
     Nausheena Hussain organized a self-defense class last weekend in Findley, Minnesota, because she wanted her fell0w Muslim women to be prepared for the worst.
    
In the country of Turkey, 16-year-old Naile Erdas was shot to death by a group consisting of her father, mother, brother, and two uncles all because she had the bad judgement to get pregnant after being raped.
 
     "Given the sort of negative national rhetoric around Muslims we've been seeing across the nation...
 
In the country of Syria, 16-year-old Zahra al-Azzo was stabbed 5 times in the head and back for lacking the foresight to not get kidnapped and raped. This punish-the-rape-victim thing in Muslim countries sure does seem to be a recurring theme, doesn't it?
 
...we wanted to make sure we could prepare the women just in case something were to happen," said Hussain, executive director of RISE (Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment.).
 
In Iraq, two female teens were doused with boiling water and shot to death by their father, all because he suspected they were having sex.
Well, as it turned out this Iraqi Sherlock bin Laden was wrong. A medical examination that was conducted before they were buried showed that they were still both virgins.
Oh, well. Mistakes happen.
 
     The Saturday class at Al-Amal School class was taught by Brooklyn Park police Sgt. Toni Weinbeck,
 
An eloping. Saira Bano, 19, was shot to death by her brother. Apparently, he didn't care for the fact that she had married a non-Muslim.
In the Muslim countries, when you say, "till death do you part," it means "till death do you part."
Especially if you're a woman.
 
who demonstrated basic self-defense strategies like punching, elbowing and kicking.
 
Shawbo Abdul-Razaq, 20, who was shot to death by her father for talking on the phone to someone who may or may not have been a boy.
The father couldn't say for sure.
 
She described simple safety precautions like being aware of your surroundings and staying in well-lit areas.
 
In Libya, three girls--15, 17, and 18--had their throats slit by their father because they brought dishonor to their family by being raped by Gaddafi loyalists.
Somehow, I get the idea that in Muslim countries they've got it backward when it comes to who's the victim and who's the guilty party when it comes to rape.
 
Many of the group of about 20 women who attended the class
 
In Pakistan, Anvushah, a 15-year-old girl, was beaten and had acid poured over her face and body by her mother and father for talking to an unknown boy.
I guess her parents must have split the torturing/murdering duties, with the father probably beating his daughter, and her mother in charge of helping him pour the acid on her.

said they have already had experiences that make them feel unsafe.
 
A video in 2012 made the rounds on the internet of a girl in Afghanistan sitting alone on a hillside, wearing a gray shawl, and patiently waiting to be executed by men with guns standing around her.
 
Hussain says she plans to organize more self-defense trainings because
 
In Egypt, 10-year-old Jessica Boulous was shot while she was leaving her Bible Study. She was murdered for being Christian.
 
so many women showed interest in the class.
 
In Pakistan when a mother and her two daughters--15 and 16--were shot to death by their stepson/stepbrother and his four friends, because of a family video that showed the two young girls enjoying the rain on the lawn in the privacy of their bungalow.
 
     Oh, sure, Max... AMERICA's the problem.


American Chimpanzee
JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com
RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com
@JimDuchene