Priorities? Piece of Cake.

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Each day tops the one before it.  Each day takes the cake -- so much cake, the day-old rack is left abandoned and lonely, only cobwebs for company.  Takes a lot of calories, blowing out those industrial-strength cobwebs, getting the national priorities all straightened around.  Must have taken a ton of calories, telling us all once, and telling us all still, just go shopping -- shut up, go eat, let them have cake.

Here comes a hot loaf now, right from a Yemeni island kitchen, set up for our troops, or, so says the wrapper: Baked up nice and fresh!  Have a nice day! Uncle Sam's Bakery's not pulling up stakes anytime soon.  Looks like we'll always be able to have our cake and eat it, too.

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Thousands of troops are now offloaded at a Yemeni island, Socotra, off the tip of Somalia, southeast of Yemen.  The place is called "the other Galapagos," by some, more than 700 species found nowhere else in the world.  Welcome to the possible conflict zone, all you species.

The report is very careful to note, you see, that thousands of troops have been moved in for a possible armed conflict with Iran.  See the language, how it dances all over the floor, threatening to melt and bond with the wood, right into the dance floor:  Snow is possible in winter, hot days are possible in summer, too.  All these other pokes and probes to try and artificially pick a fight with Iran, in coordination with Israel, with statements about possibilities maybe in the spring...

How much is posing, how much is chest-thumping, how much is all-show-versus-all-go?

In a moment not to be missed, right in the middle of this, Madonna fans in Israel are pleading with their prime minister to delay any war until after the May 29 concert in Tel Aviv -- how's that for priorities?

Back to the freshly-landed troops on Yemeni soil:  this announcement strolls on in casually, a couple of months after it was first learned there's a floating U.S. base in Yemeni waters, too.

Probably-most-likely, all still probable, in the realm of probability, and of possible possibility, then -- don't you think so, probably-maybe, possibly so?

Still and all, it should be noted:  We're off schedule here, we have some lost time to make up. You know, that whole untidy business of 4-star General Wesley Clark's hearing about master plans to roll through seven countries in just five years -- well, these things take time, you know, going to multiple wars.  Things come up while you're baking fresh loaves for the press, all that cake for the public to go eat.

Oh, speaking of priorities again:  Here's something right out of "Soylent Green" meets "1984," but instead, starring Woody Woodpecker -- the really crazy-looking, cigar-smoking, wild-eyed, completely bats, original one:

More than a hundred Orlando cops were called up, some clad in riot gear, to turn away a tide of -- take a deep breath, now -- of potential shoppers who had rushed a Nike store on the occasion of a midnight release of a limited edition, 220-dollar, uh, sneaker.  All this, over a pair of basketball shoes -- and, at 220 bucks a throw, too?

Good to get your priorities straight in America. Why extend or jeopardize yourself over trivialities of illegal wars or economic rape, for starters, when you can queue up, after a fashion, try to get a foot in the door, get a shot at paying for some over-priced footwear?  Now that's worth taking some chemical weapons right in the face from police -- not this Occupy stuff!

No one was hurt at the shoe melee, although one person was arrested, further north, at a similar event in Maryland, a state not far from the nation's capital -- not only the place, but, the legal tender, too.

You might also remember pepper-spraying and shootings, door-buster-crushings of and by shoppers during the holy festival of post-Thanksgiving shopping.  You might even go back further than that:  Remember school-yard kids mugged and shot for the hot jacket or shoe of the moment, hijacked by thug fashionistas?

As long as we're checking priorities here, let's combine fronts, make it a piece of cake for all of us, now.

Let's just say the hell with it, plaster the sides of the helicopters with Air Jordan, let 'em blaze down those spotlights on rioting shoppers or Iranians, stunning and blasting them with tunes by Madonna, "Material Girl," roared too loud and overly proud, updating the helicopters' descent ala "Apocalypse Now."

The black helicopters swooshing down in waves, riding like valkyries -- like errand boys sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill -- tossing lightning, loving the smell of charred sneakers in the morning -- the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, driving the chariot of Zeus, king of the gods, all across the darkening skies.

Just Do It.  There's cake.