February 2007: I Hate Breathing

Band poster, found on a utility pole.

Which about sums up the years of this regime and all that it's pulled off, from the "Clear Skies" style attacks on the environment, to the toxic acts on all other fronts.

This month, there's some rare media coverage, as the Washington Post begins a series exposing conditions at Walter Reed.

Weekdays I'm surrounded by people who believe anything approaching journalism must be a lie invented by a fantastical "liberal media." Or, if they acknowledge any facts, they convince themselves that these things could have happened only because evil bureaucrats do bad things they know they must hide from the godly Leader's disapproval.

From mid-month, Cruella is on a Carribean cruise for 2½ weeks. She takes off nearly as much time as Bush, but I'm free of her presence pretty often, even if I'm trapped in a room with Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant.

While Cruella is gone, Jesus' BAA emails (cc: Ghengis) to inform me that she will be conducting a candidate for a muckety-muck administrative job from office to office, for the various faculty muckety-mucks to check him out.

"I will be out of the office from 2:30 – 3:00 pm on Wednesday. On Thursday, I will be out for a few minutes at 8:30, 9:00, 2:30, and 3:00. Please arrange your breaks around those times."

It's to highlight what a bad employee I am, taking breaks as I do.

I send the schedule to Clever Sister, who says, "But which minutes will she be gone? Shouldn't you know precisely which ones?"

During one of the Jesus' BAA-less minutes, Dr. G. Zuss exits his office and remarks that His assistant sure likes the heat on high. I check the thermostat between her desk and his office: it's on 80. I turn it down, and leave Jesus' BAA a helpful note, just so she will be sure to know she has done something displeasing.

This is strictly for her own good—just as she looks for reasons to inform on me to Cruella, for my own good. Could this deflect some of Cruella's tirades from Jesus' BAA to me? That would be suspicious of me to think so, as Jesus' BAA has no selfish motives, but does only godly things in everyone's best interst. So the least I can do is return the favor.

I note the goings on to Clever Sister, who replies, "wtwjp - what temperature would jebus prefer?"

On the 21st, Tony Blair announces troop withdrawals from Iraq. Reading the news at her computer, Jesus' BAA looks crushed.

Clever Sister later says she heard ABC mumble the news to make it sound as if Blair were sending more troops.

On the 27th, Cheney is in Afghanistan, where he is the apparent target of a bomb that doesn't touch him, but kills a number of other people. Presumably, to the great relief of Jesus' BAA, after the terrible scare she got a year ago.

Driftglass notes:

"'Behold a Pale Horse: and his name that sat on him was Death,
and Hell followed with him'

...I am also very confused by the story itself, since we know that the Taliban has been utterly defeated in Afghanistan.

How?

Well, because our government said so:

For your RDA of irony, we'll shall cite this from the People’s Daily January, 2002:

The United States on Tuesday formally announced that the Taliban has been completely defeated and can no longer control any territory in Afghanistan."