Settle down, now. That’s right. Keep calm. (Zamboola – grab the net!) That’s right, nobody’s gonna’ harm you. (Not that net, you idiot… the fishing net!) Nice monster….
Whoops, sorry. Didn’t mean to ignore you. Just kind of got our hands full over here in Big Green-land. (No, not Greenland…. Big Green land. Just a turn of phrase – let it pass, let it pass). Not that we’re incapable of coping, lord no. Why, we’ve got some truly unique talent to work with over here. Hell, Big Zamboola himself is an entire planet of wisdom, substantially reduced in size, but still… And Marvin (my personal robot assistant) holds all the knowledge of the ages within his somewhat threadbare memory banks. (It would be helpful if he would just let a little of it out once in a long while, but there you have it.) So sure, we can handle just about anything. Though if any of you have any experience working with giant sea creatures – particularly the more belligerent varieties – please do chime in.
Right – so, as some of you will recall, we were steaming along the N.Y. state Barge Canal, heading westward towards the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill at a respectable four knots (respectable, that is, if you are fighting gale force winds… which we were knot… I mean, not), when we 
elected to cast off our bonds (we were informal galley slaves, or “temps” as they’re sometimes called) and storm our way to the command deck to confront our captors. It was then that we were faced with… well, I can only describe it as a large, snake-like object. Oh, foul it was, with a… ahem… I mean, this fucker was easily fifty feet high, and it was all neck. And, unlike the rest of us, it probably never had to settle for the low-hanging fruit. In spite of that fact, it seemed jolly well interested in our little vessel… or something therein. So the monster loomed above us. And it looked very, very hungry.
Hell of a time for them to open the luncheon buffet! What is it with these gaming cruises, anyway? Can’t they just let people eat when they want to (i.e. when they run out of 
money at the baccarat table)? Lord no! So what the hell, some bastard rings a bell and the folks start lining up. Then that sea creature, mannerless lout that he (or she) is, cuts ahead in line and starts scooping up all of the crab salad. This drew the attention of the ship’s executive officer, who inserted himself between the comestibles and the sea monster, demanding that the beast find another source of sustenance. To give credit where credit is due, that critter did alter its dining plan, helping itself to the hapless lieutenant. (You need to be careful what you ask for.)
It may or may not surprise you to learn that people are a lot like potato chips. Once you eat one, it’s hard to stop. Ask any sea monster. Just ask them quickly, and don’t wait for an answer. Got to go. I just can’t type and run (and scream) at the same time.
country. That leaves only one option – turn off the revenue tap. The Democratic congressional leadership and “front runner” presidential candidates make this out to be a complex affair, but it’s really much more as Rep. Dennis Kucinich describes it. To cut off the funding, congress doesn’t need to pass any legislation at all – quite the opposite. Simply block any further supplemental spending bills for the Iraq war. This will force the administration to implement an orderly withdrawal. If they don’t agree to approve specific funding for a withdrawal and reparations plan along the lines of what George McGovern and others have proposed, then withdrawal can be funded from other sources within the Pentagon system.
Bush isn’t the whole problem, of course. Very few Democrats are strongly opposed not merely to the conduct of the war but to the objectives it was founded on. Their refusal to bring it to an end is not due to cowardice so much as lack of wisdom and, somewhat less charitably, bad intentions. Many voted to authorize this war, even when they knew – as did you and I – that the rationale behind it was bogus. But even the more “liberal” or “progressive” voices are speaking from pragmatism. Obama criticizes Clinton for agreeing to the war without having an exit strategy. This implies that, had someone articulated a way out, it would have been okay to blow a big bloody hole in a country we’d already strangled, bombed, and starved for many years. Like John Kerry in 2004, most are presenting themselves as better managers of the war. The only ones who openly attack the Iraq project on a fundamental level are Gravel and Kucinich. But in the world of major party politics, being right is not an electoral asset.
Above us it loomed, its great bulk blocking the early afternoon sun. Oh, foul it was, with a stench that recalled many a dormitory morning back at S.U.N.Y. New Paltz (Gaige Hall). Queasy…. so queasy…
Okay, so anyway… row, row, row, goes the galley; boom, boom, boom goes the drum. After a couple of days of this, we’re getting a little, well, tired. So I encourage Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to sneak upstairs during his bathroom break (not entirely necessary in his case, anyway… Marvin’s leaks all involve machine oil) and have a look around. Well, he came back with a couple of interesting discoveries. First, the ship appears to have an engine and a great paddle wheel… which suggests to my mind that they’re making us row purely out of meanness and nastiness, and not for any locomotive purposes. Second, there’s gambling going on up there at practically all hours of the day and night. So this barge turned out to be one of those riverboat casinos (either that, or the captain has a bit of an issue with certain compulsive behaviors). On top of that, Marvin was, quite frankly, sent away with a bee in his ear by the captain’s imperious wife. There was only one thing for it – mutiny!
noticeable), we all dropped our oars and marched up the stairs, deaf to the belligerent calls of our overseer, with the intent of confronting our captain. I felt the spray from the canal as we broke through the bulkhead doors and climbed up on deck for the first time in four days. It was then that we saw it. Oh, foul it was, with a stench that recalled…. oh, right, you’ve heard that bit. We saw what looked like an enormous garden hose stretching straight up into the sky. Closer to the water, you could see the outlines of some kind of Diplodocus-like body. No doubt about it – this was the real thing. The lock 17 monster. I’d heard legends, but never… never did I suppose they were true.