Novels, short stories, music, let's do lunch!

Archive for September, 2015

Pope Frankie’s Visit

 

          Naturally, I am delighted that Pope Francis is coming to see me! His is a hectic schedule. Rather than selfishly insist on a private audience, I have— in the name of Christian hospitality— decided to share my experience with an additional 49,999 other people outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

I feel it’s the least I can do!

Lest you think I am simply name-dropping here, allow me to elucidate.

I graduated from Oxburg High School with Cecilia Pope (no relation to the pontiff).

In our Army unit, before every deployment, Catholic school graduate  Dougie McDonnell would remind us that “There is no hope without the pope.” In battle, I admit, this got bastardized into “There is no dope quite like the pope.” (Full disclosure: My mom feels this is terribly offensive and I should delete it. What to do?)

Our family has had a lasting relationship with the Holy See.

My Grandma Esther, my mom’s mother, took the Queen Mary from New York to Europe in March of 1965. When she reached Italy, ornery and difficult to deal with, she wrangled herself an audience with Pope Paul VI. Unfortunately, Esther got into an argument with His Holiness over the Roman emperor Constantine’s calling of the Council of Nicaea in 325 to refute the heresy of the Egyptian priest Arius. Esther agreed with Arius that while Jesus was divinely inspired, he was not necessarily a blood relation of the Deity. Not a first cousin, not a son. It was Esther’s conviction that with the unassailable establishment of The Holy Trinity, the Catholic Church has never been quite the same.

Pope Paul VI, a deeply evangelical man— named after the Apostle Paul— disagreed.

Theology was not the reason, however, for the meeting. In compensation for Pope Pius XII’s alleged collaboration with the Nazis during World War Two, Esther felt the Church could donate some of its land holdings in Poland to us, the Zakroiski clan of Bialystok. “We lost 34 cousins,” declared Esther. “Some Christian charity would salve this wound.”

It wasn’t as if Esther wanted to move back to Poland, of course. No way! Esther intended to sell the land and use the proceeds to acquire a nice condominium in Miami Beach, Florida. In any case, “Nope,” said the Pope.

Thus, sadly, to this day, I lack a baronial estate on the river Vistula in Poland. (Hint! Hint!)

When I heard that Pope (påve) Johannes Paulus II intended to visit Sweden (Sverige) in 1989, I wrote a letter to the Vatican suggesting which neighborhoods he should avoid: Places like the Stockholm suburbs of Alby and Jordbro, where the Turks and Assyrians are so militantly Muslim, a Catholic prelate might not receive such a warm welcome. I’m told the Pope’s visit to Sweden went swimmingly.

I had great hopes during the reign of John Paul, nicknamed “the Polish pope.” His given name was Karol Józef Wojtyła. Originally from Wadowice in Poland, he officiated in the Vatican from 1978 to 2005. He traveled the world. You know what we used to say, “John Paul, George and Ringo.” Alas, when my phone rang, it was never the Vatican on the line. 

So what do we have here? In the year 2015, President Obama snubs the prime minister of Israel, but for the pope, he rolls out the whole megillah. So much for the separation of church and state!

It is my sincerest hope that this papal visit will spread the word on the importance of the Jumbotron.

Thank you.

Kevin Feingold, XYZ

September, 2015

Category:

satire

Iran Deal Means Death

 

          Life offers us choices. What we do at the crossroads defines our future.

In 1999, I predicted that Al Gore would be a flawed candidate who would turn a clear electoral advantage into a cliffhanger. But even I could never envision the Decision 2000  mess of butterfly ballots, Pat Buchanan’s candidacy, hanging chads, Republican bullying and Al Gore totally caving. To spare us further agony, nice Al Gore let the Supreme Court hand the presidency to George W. Bush. This was a crossroads and America took the wrong path.

To err is human. An activist and ecologist, Al Gore would have made mistakes during his time in the White House. But they wouldn’t have been the Dick Cheney – George Bush mistakes. Hopefully, Al Gore would have seen the approach of 9/11. George W. Bush, appropriately named, spent August of 2001 thumbing his nose at the Washington press corps (and waving his butt at the cameras), ostensibly clearing brush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Al Gore certainly would not have used Osama bin Laden’s heinous attack as an excuse to go to war with… Saddam Hussein in Iraq?

The Iraq war— deposing, capturing and executing Saddam Hussein— has led directly to ISIS. There’s a reason Saddam was an iron-fisted dictator. Once destabilized, Iraq has proved a disaster. This was a crossroads and we chose wrong. There’s no putting this genie back in Aladdin’s lamp.

Meanwhile, Iran’s proxy Hezbollah blew up the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983, killing 220 Marines and 21 other service personnel. They also bombed the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, killing 19 U.S. servicemen and wounding 498 other people. And blew a hole in the USS Cole in Yemen in the year 2000, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39 others. Crying “Death to America!”, the Persians in Tehran cheered. No worries. Bush and Cheney responded by attacking… Iraq.

Crossroads.

In 2008, after winning more delegates in the primaries than Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton watched while New York Senator Charles Schumer and the so-called super-delegates— the party bosses— handed the nomination to Barack Obama. This was a crossroads and the Democrats went with the basketball player, the superstar. Never mind that Obama was a snake oil salesman, a childish man who snuck cigarettes and misled the voters with glorious promises of a bright new bipartisan future! Say what?

America chose wrong and Iran will get the bomb.

Following the agenda of a closet Muslim, Obama made overtures to Iran. Entering negotiations in Geneva, terrified of coming home empty-handed, Secretary of State John Kerry gave away the kitchen sink, desperately extending deadlines and conceding point after point. You and I could have negotiated a better agreement than Kerry’s!

Obama promised us that “no deal is better than a bad deal”— look it up!— and promptly reneged, proclaiming this hopelessly inadequate treaty to be the deal of the century. He insists that the only alternative is war!

The only alternative is to push the Iranians back to the negotiating table and forcing them to make a few concessions. Let’s get Iran out of the nuclear energy business before the world removes the sanctions. Has no one at the White House ever heard of a dirty bomb? Radioactive waste wrapped around a conventional explosive. Ka-blam!  Contaminating our cities in terrorist attacks. Making them uninhabitable. Well, duh! Doesn’t anyone in the White House have any security training at all?

We are repeating the mistakes of the 1930’s, with Iran taking the place of Nazi Germany. In order to make money, the G5+1 nations— the US, the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China— who are supposed to be in charge, are sacrificing world peace for cash on the barrelhead. Everybody is lining up to trade with Iran! A new market! And the Iranians have oil! Oh, goody! Totally short-sighted, we put trade ahead of world peace. This is the same mentality that had America selling steel to Japan before World War Two and IBM helping the Nazis with data processing, so they could create the extermination lists used to deport people to the concentration camps.

In 2015, Democratic Senators and Congresspeople are busy thumbing their noses at the Republicans and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, supporting a nuclear agreement that will propel the world into war within a decade.

The Republicans are no better. Instead of a groundswell of bipartisan opposition to one of the worst deals in American history, the Republicans gathered the Tea Party Patriots on the west lawn of the Capitol, where they listened to the brilliance of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. This is the Republican response to World War Three: Donald Trump.

We are at a crossroads and once again, mankind has chosen the wrong path. Favoring the Iranians— who still shout “Death to America!” and mean it— the Obama administration puts personal vanity, ego and greed before common sense. Paving the way to Armageddon.

Enjoy!

Category:

essay

Down with Democrats!

 

My mom and I have been lifelong Democrats. That’s over!

I can’t believe how the Democrats are playing politics with the nuclear agreement with Iran. This Iran deal stinks to high heaven. Any clear-eyed individual sees that it’s entirely bogus. That it cannot be enforced. Iran is going to cheat. And use their unfrozen assets to finance terrorism. They’re laughing! That should make you wonder, right there. Abolish this frigging accord. Throw it in the trashcan of history, where it belongs.

Instead, to thumb their noses at the Republicans in Congress, to show off and kiss Obama’s ring, foolish Senators and Congresspeople are marching lockstep to Armageddon. The administration gives us used car salesman assurances. Followed by hysterical claims that “the only alternative is war!”

Hello-o! We’re already at war! In awarding damages to the families of victims, U.S. courts have found Iran responsible for the 1983 Beirut Marine Barracks bombing, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia and the 12 October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the harbor of Aden in Yemen. Know your enemy. Nothing has changed for the Mullahs since the Iran hostage crisis of 1979. They still hate us and call us The Great Satan. They are still waging war on America.

Wake up!

You don’t give Hitler the atomic bomb.

I was hoping that as a lame duck president, Obama would quietly fade away. No such luck. A childish individual, he’s desperate to leave his mark. His staff goes on at length about his “legacy.” Listen! Give the guy a presidential library in Kinshasa and be done with it! But no, Obama and Kerry are movers and shakers. They feel the earth move. They have visions.

Kerry is an egomaniac, tilting at windmills. When he was young, he tried single-handedly to win the Vietnam war. And failed. As Secretary of State, Kerry tried to untie the Gordian Knot, brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And failed. Now, constantly extending the deadline, making endless concessions, terrified of coming home from Geneva empty-handed, Mr. Fantastic has brought us a cow turd and tells us it’s gold dust.

A wise and grown-up president would say, “This won’t do. Go back and get it right or forget about it.” Instead, we’re being sold a pup. Fanfare over substance. Rhetoric over facts. Drama over intellect. Wishful thinking versus reality.

Obama is worried about his legacy. He should be! He will go down in history as The Second Great Appeaser, Neville Chamberlain in our time, America’s first black president, a closet Muslim.

Congratulations to Chuck Schumer and the Democratic super-delegates from the 2008 Democratic Convention! You elected this bozo.

Down with the Democrats! Throw the bums out!

Or vote to abolish this damned Iran deal!

Category:

essay