Low bridge, everybody down. Low bridge, ’cause our driver is a clown! Man, don’t you just love those old work songs! Just the thing to take the ache out of my sorry ass.
Oh, yes… greetings from your friends in Big Green; keepers of the flame of slovenliness, protectors of the weak-minded, masters of procrastination, and the one and only cereal that comes in the shape of animals. (Yes, we’re Crispy Critters, all right.) When last you saw us, we were chugging along the New York State Thruway on foot, pulling disdainful glances (and more than one determined scowl) from those who wear the state’s uniform and carry the state’s water. (Yes, our state has water, too.) Admittedly, we must have made quite a sight, pacing down the center of that august and still-not-paid-for thoroughfare, making our way somewhat nervously over the Schoharie Bridge where several travelers lost their lives some years back (subject of Matt’s song Just Five Seconds, a recording of which I will post at some point in 
the not so distant future). Hell, if we were to let fear stop us from doing what we need to do, we would have stopped doing anything meaningful years and years ago. So….wait a minute… maybe we are a-feared after all!
Well, heck… that’s a revelation. Anyway… yes, we were conspicuous as hell trooping down the Thruway, and, yes, we got kicked off by the Thruway Authority, the State Police, and some engineers from the DMV who thought Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was some kind of automated road surveying device or a white-stripe painter or something. (Actually, if you dip his casters in paint, he can do a passable job of the latter function. Regarding the former… I just don’t know.) We were unceremoniously dumped off onto the public roads in an area of upstate New York with which none of us are terribly familiar — somewhere near the Auriesville Shrine, I believe. Not a red cent between us. No credit cards. No luncheon vouchers. And hell, Big Zamboola hadn’t eaten a single thing since that last cup of overpriced tea down on the island of Manna-hatt-a-hun. (Don’t travel with a hungry planet. Just. Don’t.)
Well, geez-Louise, or as Mitch Macaphee’s grandmother used to say, “fuck a duck, Gertrude,” how the hell do you get over land with a motley band if you don’t have 
conveyance? (Perhaps with a séance?) We puzzled over this for quite a while before fortune smiled down upon us (as it always does) and placed the means of transport within our grasp. The Barge Canal! (formerly known as the Erie Canal, eighth wonder of the world… back when there were probably only about seven wonders). We made our way to the nearest marina and negotiated passage on a somewhat tired looking riverboat. (That’s right, that’s right… we didn’t have any money, so the negotiation mainly involved sneaking on board while the crew was below deck drinking their wages. Don’t look at me like that…. I’m freaking sensitive, okay?) It’s not the kind of barge you would expect to see on this superannuated waterway, but…. it’ll do, and it’s headed in the right direction.
Before you ask, let me just disclose that, yes, we did get caught and were compelled to renegotiate the price of our passage from “free – stowaway” to “free – galley slave”. Didn’t know those paddle-wheels were driven by brute force, eh? Well… now you know. Just remember – poor Zamboola doesn’t even have arms!
stories were the intelligence reports about a resurgent Al Qaeda and the interim report on “progress” in Iraq. While those two stories are, by virtue of previous intelligence reports, intimately related, Sawyer and Stephanopoulos were careful to keep them in their separate silos. No chance that either of these seasoned journalists would, say, ask Michael Chertoff whether or not Al Qaeda’s new strength was further evidence that the Iraq war is spawning a new generation of terrorism, drawing more people to extremism, and alienating those people in the middle east who might otherwise harbor some affection for us. I mean, we know that this stupid war is making terrorism worse – why do we pretend otherwise? 
Even in the face of no significant progress on the “benchmarks”, Bush demands patience. That’s basically the only card he has left. He’s got nothing to lose by taking that position because… well… he’s got nothing to lose. He can’t run for president again and he knows it’s unlikely that he’ll be impeached, so he’s got the office for the next 18 months. And as long as he never admits failure, Bush can always tag the collapse of Iraq on someone else. It won’t be down to him. It will be Congress’s fault if they cut off funds and Iraq falls apart. It will be the Iraqis’ fault if the money keeps flowing but the place implodes anyway. It will be the skeptics’ fault in either case for draining the American people’s will to “stay the course.” And when he leaves office with the war still rolling lethally along, he leaves the mess to someone else who will take the blame for the ensuing disaster. For now, Bush and company are content to prolong the fiction that there can be a good outcome to this war for anyone besides Halliburton and Blackwater. If doing so kills another World Trade Center’s worth of Americans between now and the end of his term, it’s no skin off his nose.
Saints preserve us. Not that we’re saints, but then… if we were, wouldn’t we be preserving ourselves rather than asking others to do it for us? What’s with the look? Hey… you’ve got to think about these things when you’re an explorer, you know.
All right, there was a better reason to head northward. The two Lincolns – posi and anti – who have plagued our existence since their arrival in this time period, jumped into a taxi and told the cab driver to take them to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. The cabbie seemed to know what they were talking about, and he went north, so we’re following him. Not much to go on, I will admit, but that’s what we’ve got, okay, so get off my back… JUST CLIMB OFF, DAMMIT! Ahem… forgive me. It’s the pressure, that’s all. You can’t know what it’s like unless you’ve taken on an unknown continent with no one you can rely on for support or guidance – a sojourner cut off from civilization and condemned to find his way through the wilderness in the company of some very questionable associates, one of whom is, quite frankly, a vegetable. It sickens me to think of what Magellan must have gone through… or that guy who explored the Hudson Valley…. what the hell was his name?
discovery of the Thruway actually made our journey home a simple matter of following the expensive ribbon of asphalt through the remote valleys of upstate New York until the right exit sign appeared. I tell you, the gods of the State Department of Transportation were smiling down upon us (quite literally, from their enormous yellow vehicles) as we made our way along this magnificent causeway (’cause way up yonder, they’re ain’t a whole lot of other good roads). I can only wonder at what might have been the source of their amusement. (Perhaps the fact that we, unlike our fellow Thruway travelers, did not have a vehicle, and we’re trailing along behind Big Zamboola like mutant ducklings.)