July 30, 2003
angry hippie girl
I was just listening to Democracy Now on the radio. I still am, actually. It's the kind of program that makes me feel outraged and helpless all at once. Not a very good feeling, really.
One benefit of feeling helpless and outraged is that it makes some things seem very funny.
One man was on earlier. His opinions made my blood boil and his behavior was rude and unpleasant. He asked the other panelist a question and then didn't allow her to answer.
Ms. Amy Goodman was very gently assertive and said, "Sir, you asked her a question and aren't allowing her to answer."
He was quiet for a few moments.
I do have a favorite thing, though. It was the way he made his points. They were talking about whether Saddam Hussein should be assassinated rather than arrested. Of course the fellow said arrested. Then he backtracked to indicate that it would only be appropriate for Hussein to be arrested if there was no risk to American troops. If a sniper had a clean shot, he said, he (or she?) should shoot him. Now here comes my favorite part: to describe the idea of arresting rather than using overwhelming force, his rhetorical device (which stinks, so I recommend not using it) was to say things like, "It's like asking a group of police who have a serial killer locked in a building to send in only one officer armed only with a knife the same size as the killer!"
?
What?
Who said anything like that? Oh, and is it really like that at all? How about this one, which I have engineered: "It's like sending an entire loaf of bread to make two pieces of toast. It's like sending an entire cutlery set to butter one side of a frozen toaster pastry."
This analogy would describe, of course, some kind of overkill situation. (I might suggest the Jessica Lynch rescue, but that's been talked about too much, don't you think?)
Now, I shall make an analogy for what the silly man on the radio said. "It's like I'm a totally irrational fool who doesn't listen to anything but my own melodic voice. It's like I'm so completely interesting that logical thought is unnecessary. It's like I'm saying things that are so extreme and unrelated that no one can possibly argue with me. My communication skills are so entrancing that I'm like a tomato and a dandelion playing near the road while egg beaters go skittering down the highway all while tiny ladybugs sing a song about drunken sailors."
That is so totally more what it's like.
