Friday, September 21, 2007

Mandela and David Brent.

This is one of those moments of unintended comedy that only having a genuinely embarrassing national leader can provide:


"Nelson Mandela is still very much alive despite an embarrassing gaffe by U.S. President George W. Bush, who alluded to the former South African leader's death in an attempt to explain sectarian violence in Iraq.

"'It's out there. All we can do is reassure people, especially South Africans, that President Mandela is alive,' Achmat Dangor, chief executive officer of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said as Bush's comments received worldwide coverage...

"'I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas,' Bush, who has a reputation for verbal faux pas, said in a press conference in Washington on Thursday...

"References to his death -- Mandela is now 89 and increasingly frail -- are seen as insensitive in South Africa."


Some highlights from this excruciating press conference can be seen below. Viewing it requires a taste for punishment and is not recommended for the easily depressed.

Now quite obviously Bush was not literally suggesting that Nelson Mandela was dead -- to be certain he neither knows nor cares the least thing about Mandela -- but was rather attempting (struggling and failing might be a better term) to say that Iraq's potential Mandelas, i.e. unifying social leaders, are all dead.

The analogy itself is hopelessly flawed, suggesting that Bush has little or no understanding of what Mandela actually did -- he picked the name up somewhere, thought it sounded good. There also hovers the question of how many "Mandelas" might also have been killed in the mismanaged chaos since Hussein's fall, not to mention the rather unflattering implication underlying Bush's statement that those Iraqis that survived Hussein are a pack of do-nothings unlikely to pick up the ball. But at least we can grant Bush enough credit to perceive that he was making no statement regarding the health and survival about the actual Nelson Mandela.

But misunderstandings snowball, don't they... we recall a charming exchange between a former German president and the just-arrived president of India. Attempting to say a friendly "How are you?" in greeting, the German leader stumbled on the language and instead said "Who are you?" To which the President of India, not unnaturally, replied, "I am the President of India." A delicate pause of mutual confusion ensued.

Thus the not-unnatural response to this blundering statement, as we painfully dig our way out of yet another presidential wordslide. Note the wry tone of that headline: "Mandela still alive despite..."

It's not amusing for South Africans of course, in light of Mr. Mandela's health. Nor is it amusing to recall that the President of the United States believes in his own garbled reasoning enough to continue sending people to their deaths. Yet more and more these days we think of David Brent, the self-important, agonizingly foolish office manager created by Ricky Gervais on the BBC's original "The Office." Like Brent, Bush is an inarticulate man fumbling his way through a position of leadership, one who is under the painful delusion that his ignorance makes him entertaining, likeable, and worthy of respect.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States:



Monday, September 17, 2007

We'll go on.

...bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur
nuk!

(STATIC)

....and so ahem, and yes, we are back on the air aft...

...terference on the waves, airwaves we should say, one of those things you just can't help, exactly, but that's just how it....

...oodness gracious great balls of....

...still having some transmission troub....

...to the faraway towns, now war is declar...

(TEST PATTERN)

Are we on?

(Yes, go, talk!)

Stand by for a message to our loyal readership:

(CALMING AND DIGNIFIED MUSIC -- MUSSORGSKY'S "PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION")

Ladies and gentlemen. Our last post, entered in January of this year -- it is now September, for those not keeping track -- addressed a peculiar trend in a certain American town. Shortly after that post was written, Our Founder the esteemed Dr. Hulbeck was chloroformed, blindfolded, dragged into an unmarked white-gray van, urinated upon -- we blush to admit it but we can do no more than report the truth -- and then subjected to repeated physical humiliations by an unseen assailant known only by the codename "Maverick." Why this happened we do not know, nor do we understand why the esteemed Doctor was repeatedly referred to as "Ice."

The deep trauma of this incident sent shock waves through our organization. To compund the problems our in-house tech support guy, Horst, came down with food poisoning. The temp agency sent us a replacement, Frank, with remarkable promptness -- before we'd even notified them, actually -- who, after "auditing" our system, told us that we were not "clear" and that we had to shut down. (We're not technical people here at the Institute, so the jargon often escapes us.)

When Horst finally recovered a great brouhaha erupted and after a good deal of legal wrangling and expenditure of money we have finally become ourselves again.

But all this is by the by. These things happen, after all, there's no getting aroudn simple misfortune. That's the unpleasant thing about the world, that those who would speak freely often lose the opportunity, whether through mischance or intent. Not to blow our own horns here at DHAIP, but one thing we have always striven for is honest and open expression. Things often happen to interrupt that. Sometimes life is the problem. And it is when life is the problem, paradoxically, that we feel most dead.

Death, as we have discovered during our proverbial "time in the desert," is not having a voice. Death is the absence of argument. Death is the choice of passivity. Death is always a choice.

(A HOVERING MINOR CHORD)

Life, as they say, goes on. We suffer and we endure. We fall and rise again. Misfortune looms over all of us: global warming, nuclear terrorism, cancer, AIDS, Bush. But our imaginations keep us kicking, somehow. Over and over again.

We apologize for our gap in service, and say to all of you, via Wordsworth:

(MINOR SHIFTS TO MAJOR)

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers
And things are not what they seem.

Life s real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art and dust returnest
was not spoken of the soul.


The soul, you say? Yes. Atheists know the soul as well as anyone. Better, perhaps. We don't need Heaven; we have the Truth, the Truth we all conspire in, alive, dead, or somewhere in between. Death only enriches it and completes the story. We are REAL, every one of us. You too. Yes: you.

(A TRIUMPHANT FLOURISH. SUDDEN, JANGLING GUITAR CHORDS. A HEAVY BASSLINE BEGINS, FOLLOWED BY A HOARSE, URGENT VOICE. IT SINGS:)

LONDON CALLING!
to the faraway towns
now war is declared
and battle come down

LONDON CALLING!
to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard
all you boys and girls

LONDON CALLING!
now don't look at us
Phoney Beatlemania
has bitten the dust

LONDON CALLING!
see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the ring
of that truncheon thing

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
Meltdown expected the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running but I have no fear
Cos London is drowning and I live by the river

LONDON CALLING!
to the imitation zone
Forget it brother
you can go it alone

LONDON CALLING!
to the zombies of death
Quit holding out
and draw another breath

LONDON CALLING!
and I don't wanna shout
But while we were talking
I saw you nodding out

LONDON CALLING!
see we ain't got no highs
Except for that one
with the yellowy eyes

The ice age is coming the sun is zooming in
Engines stop running the wheat is growing thin
A NUCLEAR ERROR but I have no fear
Cos London is drowning and I live by the river

Now get this:

LONDON CALLING!
yes I was there too
An' you know what they said -
Well, some of it was true!

LONDON CALLING!
at the top of the dial
an' after all this
won't you give me a smile?

I never felt so much ALIVE...


Welcome back, dear readers.