“April is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot, “Breeding lilacs out of the dead land …” And you thought it was cruel because of the IRS Ides of April. My lilacs, urged into full bloom by a few weeks of unseasonably hot weather, are now tinged black from late frosts. Mother Nature’s April joke on me.
But April is also National Humor Month, probably because it begins with April Fool’s Day. This year in particular, with war and SARS and PETA activists striking terror into the hearts of meat eaters and fur wearers, it really is some kind of cruel joke, the humor of which escapes most of us.
Before the cluster bombs of schlock and awe, humor about the Bush putsch (er, push) to war was rampant, particularly on the Internet, where it can be disseminated under assumed names, lest the folks from Justice come calling to jail the perpetrators of mirth.
Sample: “CNN said that after the war, there is a plan to divide Iraq into three parts: regular, premium and unleaded.” Actually, Jay Leno said that on network TV.
Now the Rummy Routine is Rally Round the Flag, and for the past few weeks, Hurray, hurray, the witch is dead (well, at least “no longer a problem” smirk, smirk). But soldiers and civilians are still getting blown to smithereens by poorly placed acres of unexploded ordnance touched off by a few flares. Oops. Collateral damage. Not-so-smart weapons.
Meanwhile, the Arab world is saying, Thanks for disappearing Saddam, now Yankees go home and let our own feuding sects duke it out for control.
Iraq would like the U.N. sanctions lifted so it can reconstruct its own country, thank you very much. We want the sanctions gone too, but that’s another issue.
Instead, you and I, at least those of us in the 33 percent bracket, are paying Bechtel and Halliburton to do what the Army Corps of Engineers would be doing if its functions had not been “privatized.” Meanwhile, Bush is on the stump trying to arm wrestle fiscally conservative law makers from voting their conscience on his tax cut plan, which he’s still trying to pass off as economic stimulus. The administration’s very own weapon of mass deception. This is about as funny as having Geraldo Rivera embedded on Air Force One.
My search for humor leads me to turn the pages of The New Yorker every week, always searching the cartoons first, then Shouts and Murmurs. Also the Back Page, which on April 14, was Paul Slansky’s “The Eight Hundred Days: The Quiz.” It did not disappoint. There actually is humor in the real news, in quotes by both bureaucrats and commentators, and in headlines (all true but one).
A sample: Which of these statements did George W. Bush utter? Which did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld speak?
a) “The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself.” b) “For those who urge more diplomacy, I would simply say that diplomacy hasn’t worked.” c) “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns, that is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
Oh, Rummy. You should be on Saturday Night Live.
The last question is True or False: The orange alert of mid-February was downgraded to yellow after the increased Arab chatter picked up by U.S. intelligence was translated and turned out to be mainly about Michael Jackson. False. Oh, well, lit could have been true.
The same week, The New Yorker published “The Extremist,” Michael Specter’s profile of Ingrid Newkirk, founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, whose publicity stunts can always be counted on for a bizarre type of dark, sometimes ghoulish humor.
In one of its more benign efforts to discredit meat eating, PETA last week urged the town of Hamburg to change its name to Veggieburg or Veganburg. Officials of the New England hamlet declined.
In the interest of reader participation, I offer this quiz: Which of the following predictions is most likely to occur?
a) PETA will send activists to Iraq disguised as soldiers to throw Iraqi prisoners of war to the starving lions at the Baghdad Zoo.
b) A fiscally conservative Republican Senator from Ohio will introduce a bill requiring Bechtel and Halliburton CEOs to fund the Bush tax cuts with the billions they earn from Iraq reconstruction contracts (no loopholes allowed).
c) In retribution for Germany’s lack of support for Bush’s invasion of Iraq, hamburgers will henceforth be labeled Freedom patties. (This has nothing to do with PETA, which W. thinks stands for Petroleum Extracting Tycoons of Alaska.)
d) Monica Lewinsky will return to a life of seclusion after the TV show on which she appears, and all reality shows, are ruled impeachable offenses by the Supremes in a case brought by the Screenwriter’s Guild.
Answer: Don’t make me laugh.