Blowing stuff up

If I was president of the United States. I’d force my Secret Service detail to play ‘I’m shipping up to Boston’ by the Dropkick Murphy’s every time we drove anywhere in convoy. (I take a moment to imagine how awesome this would be) Its like the perfect going-to-the-mattresses-we-are-off-to-go-fuck-some-shit-up song. If we were flying in Marine One, it would have to be Flight of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner. At volume. On the external speakers. Obviously.

This is why I would be a great America president (like Calvin Coolidge). And as a libertarian pretty much only policy decision I’d make. I’d spend the next four years channeling Theodore Roosevelt¹ on the White House Lawn and leaving everyone else the fuck-alone. (And then not run for re-election)

[1] Ie, stick-fighting, boxing and getting my Ju-jitsu on. (In statesmanship he was far too interventionist for my taste)

Its been pretty much impossible to avoid the midterms. I wish there was some way to peruse the internet and un-click ‘America’. And while I’m sure its possible… in a morbid-fascination kinda way I have been entertained with its phenomenal awfulness.

I wonder what the ancient Greeks would have thought, having birthed democracy and its placenta boiling down (after all these centuries) to a choice between John Fetterman and Dr. Oz.

After that ‘debate’, how did the denizens of Pennsylvania not dejectedly wander out onto the street before committing mass seppuku? Like why was this not a thing? What a dishonor to be represented by such people.

NOT that the other birth place of democracy…. or perhaps more the distilling of democracy into something workable at scale is doing ANY better. (I mean the Westminster model which pretty much all ‘western’ democracies are some sort of derivative of)

Clusterfuck doesn’t even begin to cover it. Definitely should be some ritual suicide going on there right now.

I saw actually saw the Dropkick Murphys in London once. (Speaking of things Westministerish) When I was younger and had more cartilage, he says while scratching around in his box. Although I don’t remember anything from this night. Except that there may have been someone in a kilt. With a Mohawk. Playing either the bagpipes… or the accordion.

I went to a concert every single night that week. Capping it off with Muse, at the Arena in Manchester. Which would be bombed a decade later by an Islamist suicide bomber. Interestingly the same friend I went to go and see Muse with… we went to Marrakesh together. We ate at a restaurant called the Argana cafe on the Jemaa el-Fnaa square… three or four times at least because I liked the food so much.

Lunch at the Argana. God. I love North African cuisine. It could totally be my go-to-forever food of choice. If confronted by that hypothetical decision as proffered by a magical genie for example. (I’ve given this a lot of thought). A lamb Tagine is basically ambrosia.

In any event. That restaurant was bombed three weeks later killing 14 people and injuring 20.

Which made me incredibly angry, that our waiter who’d been so awesome was likely dead. For nothing.

I was obviously glad to be NOT dead.

I’m extra-credit, in terms of points scored, being a godless atheist right? Only thing that beats that is a Gay-Atheist. I think. Although maybe these days transgender-atheist is top tier? I jest, but its my modus operandi to stay sane.

Maybe sane isn’t the right word. Functional, lets go with that.

I think my greatest achievement as US president would be NOT to bomb anyone. Some people think Adel al-Othmani (The Al Qaeda insurgent who was sentenced to death for his roll in the Argana Cafe bombing) and Barrack Obama (who presided over 563 drone strikes) are fundamentally different.

I tend to think they are fundamentally the same.

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