Bucket of Information!

by Jim Washburn

Boy, have I got lots of interesting information for you today! Here’s some now: You’re in the wrong job! Whatever it is you’re doing, it can’t compare with the job KBR Inc. had doing the electrical wiring for our military facilities in Iraq. For starts, it’s the easiest job in the world. Electricity follows the path of least resistance, and so, evidently, did KBR’s subcontractors: they had electricity flowing through showers, through damp marines and soldiers, easy as pie, circuit completed, mission accomplished. There’s a trail of jolted and dead personnel and burned-out buildings to prove it. You don’t get that sense of accomplishment on your job, do you?

And not only that, but on top of the millions and millions KBR got paid to do this work—70,000 slipshod, not-up-to-code structures in all—it was also awarded $73 million in “performance bonuses” by the Bush administration for doing such an electrifying job. 

Just for comparison, let’s look at another job: Suppose you ran a charity, one that brought millions of dollars of aid to the neediest people in the Middle East. The Holy Land Foundation, nice name, headquartered in Dallas, nice town. Flour, rice and cooking oil were among the staples they sent to impoverished Palestinian families. Yet the volunteers at this charity got no performance bonuses at all, unless you count the free room and board they’ll get at state expense for decades to come.

Two foundation members each just got 65-year sentences, and other members 15 years or more on charges that they were providing material support to a terrorist organization. That’s because some of the Palestinian charities it funded were associated with Hamas, named as a terrorist organization by our government. That’s a little like calling Costco a wiener sample store. Hamas is ubiquitous in the region, with its various branches doing everything from running medical clinics to lobbing missiles at Israelis, which is in no wise nicer than the missiles Israel lobs at Hamas.

Though it was never even claimed that any of the Holy Land’s funds went to support acts of terrorism or that one person had died as a result, the “terrorist” tie was enough to get their post-9/11 asses kicked.

To recap: KBR’s negligent actions killed at least three American servicepersons, and they got a $73 million bonus for it; the Holy Land Foundation killed no Americans, or anyone else, and its founders will likely grow old and die behind bars. At least they won’t be electrocuted.

Hey, here are some fun facts about our great Middle East ally Saudi Arabia: I’ve written before about their penchant for beheading people, totaling 108 headless last year. They’re the world leader. I mean, they give their kids Pez dispensers so they’ll have a role model.

Now, at a recent trial in Riyadh, a kidnapper/ax murderer was sentenced not just to beheading, but to crucifixion. And then they took the corpse to a Cher concert.

I need to clarify a couple of things: in Saudiland, “crucifixion” doesn’t literally mean to crucify, Jesus-style, but just to hang a thing on display. So if you ran a shop, perhaps you would say, “I’m going to go crucify that new Diane von Furstenberg in the window display,” to which the floor manager would respond, “Can we behead her first?” The other clarification: It’s nearly impossible to get Cher tickets.

So this Saudi murderer got the ultra-butch haircut and then was trussed up on public display. The accounts I’ve read did not detail where or how. At a miniature golf course? On the McDonald’s arches? On the face of a clock? They could stiff-kebob the head on the big hand and the body on the small hand, and once an hour he’d look whole again.

However they did it, it’s a barbaric practice, so unlike the civilized British, who’d waited a good three years after Oliver Cromwell died before they dug him up, hanged and beheaded his rotted corpse and put the head on public display atop a pike for the next 24 years. Then, to quote a particularly poetic line from Wikipedia, “the head changed hands several times,” passing from one private collector to another, before finally being buried in 1960, 299 years after Cromwell died. Collectors since then have had to content themselves with pieces of John F. Kennedy’s brain. 

According to the Saudi government, the grisly public displays are effective in discouraging its citizens from committing crimes, which explains why only 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis.

To recap: 15 Saudi helped kill 2,752 westerners on 9/11, so we went to war with Iraq where by some accounts hundreds of thousands have died, not forgetting those killed by KBR, which got tens of millions of dollars for it; meanwhile the fear whipped up by 9/11 caused the five principals of the Holy Land Foundation to draw long prison terms for killing nobody.

Which leads me to drugs. It would lead anybody to drugs, this nutty world. I’m not talking about prescription drugs, where you wind up so full of pills you sound like frigging maracas when you jog. I’m not talking about drugs with names like Oxycontin or Lexipro, but ones with fun, pirate-grade names like Headband and Bob Marley’s Lamb’s Bread. The kind where you go back to your druggist and complain, “Hey, man, there’s too many stems in this prescription!”

I have friends who’ve gotten their California Medical Marijuana card, and they’re on Cloud 9 over it. With one of them, you’re empowered to buy marijuana over the counter, any of dozens of hilarious varieties of it (Headband is the way to go, a great-tasting, cerebral high conducive to playing music, or so I’ve heard) plus THC-laden candy bars and other hemptastic novelties. These are vended in discrete, out of the way shops, where you’d expect to find a House of Carob, a Dartboard Supplies shop, or other such entrepreneurial detritus.

The card also entitles you to smoke the stuff, and to grow it yourself and act as a “caregiver” selling your weed to other patients, or to, in theory, open your own marijuana dispensaries. I have a friend considering doing just that, so I suggested he get an old Good Humor or Helms Bakery truck and have the first mobile dispensary, maybe with those ice cream bells playing “One Toke Over the Line” as he drives through neighborhoods. I’ll let you know how that works out.

Right now, maybe you’re thinking, “Alright, already. How do I get me a piece of that Maryjane pie?” Well, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you can only get a medical marijuana card via a stringent process where a medical doctor must ascertain if you qualify, by having at least one of the following conditions:

Sinusitus, Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disease, Angina, Cough, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Agoraphobia, Hiccoughs, Hypertension, Anxiety, Color-Blindness, Eczema, Constipation, Diarrhea, Motion Sickness, PMS, Restless Legs Syndrome, Writer’s Cramp, and some 265 other ailments, including Nightmares, Cocaine Dependence, Opiate Dependence, Alcohol Dependence and Tobacco Dependence. I suspect these doctors would prescribe marijuana to treat a marijuana dependence. There are also some doozy diseases on this list I’ve never heard of, one being Limbic Rage Syndrome, though my favorite has to be Intermittent Explosive Disorder. It’s a real condition, which my little Wiki friends tell me is evidenced by bouts of extreme anger disproportionate to the situation, better known as U.S. Foreign Policy. 

I just can’t bring myself to get one of these cards. If I did, then what would I have left for criminality? I’m too old to learn any new miscreancies. When I first smoked, it was a felony. And now you can pay a doctor $125, tell him you have hiccups, and you can legally stuff your pillows with weed?  That’s too easy, dare I say socialistic? 

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