Behind the Dead Eight Ball: Translation Without Acc(id)ents
by Richard Oxman
> “Washington refuses to agree to any plan with specific targets for reducing carbon emissions, which scientists say cause the earth to heat up. Washington says such an agreement would ruin the economy, but, of course, we’d have to ‘ruin’ the American economy to avert ecocide.” — The author’s anonymous neighbor
*Deux psychologues se rencontrent et font l’amour. L’un dit a l’autre: “C’etait bon pour toi. Comment c’etait pour moi?*”
Two psychologists get together and have sex. Afterward, one says to the other: “It was good for you. How was it for me?”
Seeing Madonna’s puss next to an image of Schwarzenegger on the Sargeant Pepper album cover backdrop used by McCartney and Bono to open the dead-in-the-water Live 8 thing recently…translates as *the end of the world*.
It is not hyperbole to suggest that the whole affair was tantamount to our recent smashing into that innocent comet…redirecting it toward an encounter of a terminal kind with the earth.
“Left” celebrities praising Bush & Blair followed by prestigious alternative souls such as George Monbiot suggesting that our only solution was to work with politicians — see his final-nail-in-the-coffin conclusion to Save us from Ourselves — transmogrifies any semblance of hope we may have harbored…into something unwanted, but unavoidable. [1]
Let organizer Geldorf take the easy road of foul-mouthing the small # of violent protesters hellbent on stopping the G-8 meeting, avoiding the thrust of their frustration. Let him go to Hell.
You I hit with just a bit more of unsolicited advice. That comet now headed toward your backyard, oldest boy and/or bank account should be motivation enough for you to *prepare to meet your Maker* flat on your belly… with a smile in your fart, with or without any formally religious aspect to your prostration.
Like Charlie Chaplin said at the end of *Monsieur Verdoux*: “I’ll see you some day.” Well, maybe something was lost in translation there.
*Au revoir*.
Footnoting Down the Frets:
[1] The going to bed with politicians stuff reminds me of Helen Caldicott calling me to rationalize her *temporary* alliance with the malevolent (Rob’t) McNamara over anti-nuclear stances. The dances aren’t worth the steps, to say the least.
