"If everyone in the world sat quietly at the same time, closed their eyes and concentrated as hard as they could on peace and goodwill, all the killing and cruelty in the world would continue. And probably increase.” George Carlin
December 4, 2013
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Once upon a time there was a rock diva who had been pretty hot during her salad years. (She called them that because she always ate a lot of salad. She didn’t really read much and didn’t know any better.)
But the years rolled on and soon she was looking a little lumpy around the gills. To make things worse, her life hadn’t turned out the way she wanted it to and that made her mad. Her fans still loved her, it was true, but she didn’t love herself anymore.
Each day she’d gaze into her mirror and ask, "Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?”
"Not you, honey,” the mirror replied. "You’ll still get by, but you aren’t the fairest by far.”
The rock diva was fit to be tied.
"P.S.” said the guy in the mirror. "There’s a new kid in town. Named Palin. She’s in the same game as your ex-husband’s wife. Politics. She’s a smart lady! And she has better hair.” And then he was gone again.
"Well, I never,” rock diva sputtered, adjusting her metallic wig.
If the diva was fit to be tied before, she was royally ticked off now.
She didn’t trust smart, independent women. In fact they were everything she abhorred and she abhorred a lot these days.
It was ironic, but at the very same moment in time, synchronistically if you will, there was a little man, kind of slimy, with a tiny little heart who "read the news” for the channel-that-not-too-many-people-watched.
"My life hasn’t turned out the way I wanted it to,” he sighed, gazing into the mirror. "That interview with the king of pop nearly ruined me. What was his gripe anyway? ‘Yellow journalism?' What the heck! I told the truth, I mean my truth and I deserve to be way more famous what with my smarts and all.”
The mirror could scarcely keep from laughing, but a job is a job.
"Mirror, what can I do? None of what has happened to my career is my fault and it is daunting to be underappreciated (he said, brilliantly using one of the four words that Brits are sure to use).”
"I am smart, blast it! I deserve to be famous. Besides I have a British accent.”
The mirror, tired of the b.s. the two divas were handing out, dearly wanted a ham sandwich with mustard, so he told them both the first thing that came to his mind.
It was in a book he’d come across at a White House press conference the other day. He spotted it while he was hanging around in a mirror the president used. It had advice in it that sounded okay to pass along. Plus he was hungry.
He reached through the mirror and handed the little guy with the tiny heart the same book he had given to rock diva. The White House seal was emblazoned on the front along with the title "How to Do Whatever You Want and Never Take the Blame 101.”
"Page 10: ‘Always blame someone else and say something really nasty about them. If you’re in trouble and what they say is true, deny you knew about it and if it’s really bad, ignore it.’”
On a roll, he continued, "’If you don’t like someone, ignore them, or, again, say something nasty about them. It always makes you feel better when you make someone else feel worse.’ And you’re right,” mirror guy said with his fingers crossed. "You are special and nothing is ever your fault.”
And with that he was off to his lunch.
"He’s right,” the little man thought! "I’m going to do it, say something really nasty. It’s the right thing to do!” And suddenly he did feel better! Surely the head of the little-watched-channel would give him a raise after this!
What to say? He reflected. He thought about it, then thought about it some more. He’d include something, a history story about Jamaican slaves, blah, blah, defecate, yada, yada, urinate.
And when he was done thinking, he promptly went on air on the station-no-one-really-watched-much and said what he said.
Unfortunately the little, prissy TV guy was a little too nasty, a little too full of himself, so he went a wee bit too far. He figured he was above the law just like his president.
But he wasn’t! People protested! He was surprised. Heck, the way he saw it, nothing was supposed to go wrong.
He had always been careful not to say anything nasty about someone in his own world. (He ran with the liberal Hollywood crowd which included Washington politicians and worked at a network whose low standards fit his own to a "T.”)
He was also super careful never to say anything bad about the president. The little man with the dark little mind had low standards, well, really no standards, but he wasn’t crazy enough to start telling the truth about the news!
Meanwhile back at the diva’s mirror she was doing something she didn’t do that often – thinking.
"Well, she thought, I’ve led a charmed existence. People wouldn’t dare mess with me! I am a one-name-diva!” she said, beaming with her newly bolstered sense of entitlement. "I can say and do whatever I want,” just like it said in the book she’d been given.
Actually nothing in the book had been new to her. She and the people she hung out with pretty much lived by the rules she'd read about in the book and none of them had ever gotten in trouble.
For instance, she hadn’t even blinked when she "upstaged” the widow at her ex-husband’s funeral. The widow was gracious, but that only proved to rock diva that the widow was a sap. Served that "politician” right!
The problem facing rock diva was that both the widow and that Palin were real lookers.
"What to do, what to do,” she thought.
She had flipped through the book the mirror guy had given her. She couldn’t use the example where you deny living with your uncle who is here illegally, or the one where you deny that you knew about something you should have known about, like spying on and targeting people, that kind of thing.
Flip, flip, flip. And there were a bunch of others, but nothing she needed right now.
But a nasty slur to besmirch! Yeah! She liked besmirching. If there one thing she knew, she knew what she hated, so this plan was perfect!
"It can’t miss,” she thought gleefully. "And everyone will know how clever I am, far more clever than any of those broads in politics.”
Then, since she’d done it so much in the past, she quickly tapped out a nasty comment on her not-so-smart phone about Palin.
And it was nasty, to-beat-the-band nasty, but rock diva knew Palin deserved it.
"Dumb c---!” She sent the message on its way, then smiled as she sat back, fat and sassy and I do mean fat.
Well, as you might know, things didn’t go so well for rock diva and the little man with the tiny heart. People were outraged. Well, conservative people were.
The other people in the other group were okay with what these two were handing out because they would have done the same thing.
But suddenly rock diva and the little man had an ugly thought. They always had lots of ugly thoughts, but this was even uglier than usual. So they rushed to seek counsel with the mirror guy.
"Suppose, suppose?” they queried. "Suppose Hillary comes to Palin’s defense?
Suppose the National Organization for Women does?
Suppose the woman at the head of the Kennedy clan in California talks about this in one of her Women’s Conferences? Gasp!”
"Do not bother your evil little heads about such nonsense,” assured mirror guy.
"Hillary did receive the 2013 Liberty Medal,” he said reading from a cue card, "It says ‘in recognition of her lifelong career in public service and her ongoing advocacy efforts on behalf of women and girls around the globe.’ But don’t sweat it. She doesn’t really do that stuff! Next?”
"The National Organization for Women…” diva and little man said in unison.
"Nah. They’re not interested in you unless you want to fight to save giving abortions at 20 weeks or if you’re LGBT, whatever that means. Plus you have to be a liberal woman for them to defend you, so you two are safe. Palin’s not a liberal. What? You’re thinking they would defend Palin because she’s a woman? Don’t be ridiculous!”
"And Maria….”
"Well,” he said flipping his cards, "Says here they only talk about ‘touchy feely’ at her conferences, liberal topics, let’s see like "How to Get in Touch With Your Feelings,” stuff like that.
"They don’t know from social, especially since most of them are Democrats and with this president... Well let’s just say they wouldn’t touch political with a ten foot pole. Hello? Healthcare?” He guffawed.
"But surely the president would comment?” The two said, again in unison. "I mean I remember Trayvon, Fluke…”
"You two sillies. Stop it! You’re home free. Gotta’ run.”
And he was right. Both rock diva and the little man with the tiny heart were home free. None of the women rock diva and little man hung out with and certainly not the president ever came to Palin’s defense.
Of course you could say it was probably bad that the rock diva’s kid had to tweet an apology for his mom. That probably was bad.
And of course if you have daughters, like the president and Hillary do, the kids might wonder why their parents didn’t pony up and defend Palin…Don’t dad and mom belong to the party that's ‘for women?’”
But, hey, now I’m being silly. Not to worry. Like Carlin says, cruelty in the world will probably continue. After all, it’s trickling down from the top.
But, wait. Maybe it doesn’t have to continue.
Fifty-one whales beached themselves this week in Florida. Whale mammal specialists did their best to move them to deeper water, but the whales wouldn't budge. They refused to leave their dead behind and they sure wouldn't leave the sick members of their pod.
Seems if one of them is in trouble, they figure they're all in trouble.
Crazy thought, but maybe rock diva and little man should visit the whales down at Everglades National Park.
Whales are nice people. Might rub off on them.
Hold the line, America.