Good morning, and welcome to the Inland Northwest NewsMinute with Nathan O!. Israeli forces continue to pound the crap out of Lebanon, targeting ambulances in an attempt to reduce hospital crowding. The U.S. continues to supply weapons to Israel and humanitarian aid to Lebanon, which makes some wonder if it wouldn’t be more efficient to cut out the middlemen and send in U.S. troops to shoot and bomb, then treat Lebanese civilians (and perhaps the random Hezbollah casualty) ourselves.

Outside of the Middle East, or as most people call it “One of the most fucked up spots going on right now”, it is the 25th anniversary of the marriage of Princess Di and Prince Charles. As the marriage died, not unlike the princess herself, years ago, we’re guessing that it is a slow news day for Good Morning America. Lacking heartwarming stories of rescued kittens and exciting new colors to invigorate our lives, GMA focused instead on the wedding day and the impeccable fashion sense of Princess SweaterVest. Interviewed were the dress designers, which in one reporter’s opinion may have been somewhat of a mistake, owing to the “Oh my god!- Is that a tarantula on your head?” hair style of one of the designers. Fashion and faces meant for radio, indeed.

In this big ol’ country, 3 out of 4 American’s supposedly believe in the paranormal. In other news, research begins to study the question: “Could a lack of reason and a need to find validation through god, the paranormal or other external influences be a genetic trait, or did the parents of 3 out of 4 of us just really screw us over psychologically?”

This NewsMinute brought to you by “Life in the Can”, the heartwarming story of those hundreds of thousands of fertility clinic blastocysts that spend their last cutlture-of-life affirming moments each year snuggled in a trash liner before rotting rather than being used by evil scientists to become something useful and of actual benefit to society.

Thank you for tuning into NewsMinute with Nathan O?. Good night, dog bless, and never trust a hamster with a flamethrower.

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Gack! No friggin’ explosions yet (unless you count Iraq, which seems to have decided to blow up into three distinct countries). I have no idea when I will get around to the new section. Damn. Lazy. Bastard. Anyway, about that. Who would’ve thought that when freedom was on the march it would stomp the crap out of an entire nation? Well, besides pretty much everyone beyond the current administration and their faithful “NASCAR dad” followers. Strange, I still don’t see how you get the acronym NASCAR from “Dumb-ass redneck mouth-breathing no-thinking bible-thumping hyprocrite”. Must be my liberal upbringing.

The girl-child is having a party today, so instead of blowing things up, I’ll be trying to keep rugrats from drowning in the pool (and tossing any I fail to save over the fence for the neighbors to deal with. I have to keep the insurance premiums down, dammit!).

Okay, time to help with the pre-party chaos and see how freedom’s marching has been doing lately. I heard it’s been having a good old time in Lebanon these days as well . . .

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Oof. And ugh. We hit 105.8f at noon. Really, that’s about 20 degrees above what I like. Still, it could be worse: It could have been humid as well. Up until the 1990’s, this area was known mainly for its bugs and white supremacists. Both have decreased dramatically, which is nice. Still, I do have to say with some embarrassment that it has been just over 24 hours since our last cross burning. Way to go, Spirit Lake! Okay, time for bed. Forty five minutes in the pool with two cute mostly-naked women and I am ready for sleep. Yawn!

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So, a recap of important presidential events for the week:
1. President draws “moral line” in crayon with stem cell veto. Never mind that he already crossed the line a few years ago. So, does this mean fertility clinics need to start adopting out all those excess blastos?
2. President demonstrates “bad touching” with German Chancellor Merkel (could’ve sworn this sort of thing was covered in HR’s sexual harassment seminar. Good thing he doesn’t work for a public company).
3. President demonstrates how not to eat in public.
4. President deviously sets up NPR to be fined by the FCC by using the word “shit” in his brilliant synopsis of how to end conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
5. President makes it through the week (or halfway so far) without choking on a pretzel.

The least embarassing thing Bush has done this week, then, is not choke to death on snack food. No wonder I am so down this week.

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Please forgive me: I am a little slow today. I stayed up late last night playing the human TiVo for work. I should blog something about the Rainbow Family and the irony of their destructiveness towards nature, but I won’t. That ship sailed a week or so ago and besides, I’m driving this train (how’s that for excessive use of bad metaphors?). I’ve got the outline to a blog about Otto Zehm (a janitor beaten and suffocated to death a few months ago by the Spokane Police Department for no good reason) but I just do not feel up to it today. So instead I offer you yet another minor layout tweak. Links to my very old stories, poetry and photography are back up. Enjoy. Then go pound your head into a wall to jog the memories loose and enjoy again. Maybe tomorrow I will feel like writing.

I spent yesterday emailing what mighT hAve beeN Years Ago, which was fun. Nothing like opening the floodgates on old memories both very good and very bad. I think we are both better off leaving it as what might have been rather than switching it to what was. Anyway, time to focus on today, which means running upstairs every half hour to start a new logging and encoding session. Oh what fun.

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(this is NOT a duck. This is a little girl!)

In lieu of blowing s**t upI am going to tell you a joke. Not tell really, but relate. Present? Whatever it id does not matter, as the joke is not very good. Not in the standard sense, that is. Most jokes rely on the juxtaposition of the punchline to the buildup. Not this joke. This is the joke of a six-year-old. It is a post-modern joke, a joke without a punchline.
“But that’s any current U.S. policy, foreign or domestic” you say. Quite true, but this is a post-modern punchline-free joke nonetheless. and from what I can tell, there are no politics to be found in it. the humour relies on the delivery, on the anticipation of and diminishing expectations for the punchline, and on the irony of the mind of a six-year-old. In his mind, this is the funniest joke ever told. As a matter of fact, this should be stated frequently throughout the telling of this joke.

With just a few minor tweaks, it could be, at the least, a minor groaner with just a hint of chuckle. I will let you decide if it needs tweaking, or if delivery by a six-year-old and the attendant enthusiasm given are enough. Of course, you will have to find your own six-year-old to tell you this joke, as I have yet to do an audio blog. Maybe next month. Okay, here is the joke:

A duck walks into a store, goes up to the manager and asks “Pardon me, but do you have any gwapes?”
The manager looks at the duck and says “No, we don’t have any grapes.”
“Oh, okay” says the duck and leaves.

Five minutes later the duck walks into a store, goes up to the manager and asks “Pardon me, but do you have any gwapes?”
The manager looks at the duck and says “No, we don’t have any grapes.”
“Oh, okay” says the duck and leaves.

Five minutes later the duck walks into a store, goes up to the manager and asks “Pardon me, but do you have any gwapes?”
The manager looks at the duck and says “No, we don’t have any grapes.”
“Oh, okay” says the duck and leaves.

Five minutes later the duck walks into a store, goes up to the manager and asks “Pardon me, but do you have any gwapes?”
The manager looks at the duck and says “I already told you, we don’t have any grapes.”
“Oh, okay” says the duck and leaves.

Five minutes later the duck walks into a store, goes up to the manager and asks “Pardon me, but do you have any gwapes?”
The manager looks at the duck and says “No, we don’t have any grapes.”
“Oh, okay” says the duck and leaves.

Five minutes later the duck walks into a store, goes up to the manager and asks “Pardon me, but do you have any gwapes?”
The manager looks at the duck and says “Listen duck, no, we don’t have any grapes. If you come in again and ask for grapes, I’m going to nail your beak to the counter.”
“Oh, okay” says the duck and leaves.

Five minutes later the duck walks into a store, goes up to the manager and asks “Pardon me, but do you have any gwapes?”
The manager looks at the duck and says “No, we don’t have any grapes.”
“Oh, okay” says the duck and leaves.

. . . and that’s the end of the joke. Between each duck entry, you need to enthusiastically shout that this is the funniest joke ever and giggle a lot. Or better yet, not tell it. If you are going to tell it, I would at least change the last entry to:

Five minutes later the duck walks into a store, goes up to the manager and asks “Pardon me, but do you have any nails?”
The manager looks at the duck and says “No, we don’t have any nails.”
“In that case, do you have any gwapes?”

So, that is what is occupying the mind of the six-year-old these days. At least it wasn’t the banana/orange knock-knock.

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I’m not sure, but I think Filthy started using a spellcheck. Either that or he’s sober. Damn, just when I was getting used to the disjointed, half-finished sentences and occasional words that were open to an entire universe of misspelled possibilities. Anyway, here’s his review for You, Me and Dupree. Sure, it’s entertaining and probably the best review of the movie you’ll ever read, but it’s weird. Just plain weird. Where are the typos, the harelip, Candy Bottoms or the tavern? Please don’t be sobering up, Filthy!

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I must be ill- I keep craving beef. I am not a beef eater. Lamb, pork, chicken?- yes. Fish, shrimp, the occasional duck breast?- sure. But beef? Definitely no. So why do I keep thinking about it? Damn you, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association! Must be the voiceovers.

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It is the first day of “Blowing s**t up” and it looks like things are off to a whimper rather than a bang. I have the sacrificial item, but nothing to blow it up with. Nor have I written my reasons why it has to die. Why? I’ve either been too busy or too lazy. I will let you decide which. So, week one, the only thing to explode is the idea of blowing s**t up. Let’s hope I do not fizzle next week. Speaking of things that go boom, let us hope that Spokane explodes with integrity sometime soon and does something about its police department. Surely there must be something criminal about a chief who lies to the public to cover the actions of his own officers and officers who murder people for looking suspicious. I think it is time to update their tourism slogan: “Spokane: Near Nature. Nowhere Near Perfect.” Sounds better than “Spokane: We Support Rape and Murder.”

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