Talons & Jackboots
To the person who typed in the Google search string Why Not To Kill Myself and then found themselves directed here, well... the only thing I can say is: I'm sorry. You will be missed.

On the up-side, the Bucket was the #1 result. #1 baby, yeah!

...

Last year it was the Red Sox (1918). As of last night, this year it was the White Sox (1917) ending years of uselessness and winning a World Series. The Big Wheel of History is turning again and apparently it's decided that instead of a whole new century, we should just do the 20th century all over again. Heck, we even have a a burgeoning influenza pandemic to look forward to, the only difference this time being instead of the Spanish to blame, we only have the birdies. The bad news is that there is no Birdie Homeland we can make a smoking bomb crater out of in an effort to purify the earth, as we should have done with Spain 100 years ago.

I know, the "Spanish flu" didn't actually start in Spain, but nothing distracts the public attention from a dry cough and creeping death than a good ole war. In the intervening century, we've evolved as a people. We no longer need "reasons" to blow stuff up, just "justifications" in the aftermath to feed to the press. So long as they are sufficienty confusing/vaguely threatening while everyone is weakened with the avian flu, I don't foresee any significant resistance.

The birds, however, are a crafty adversary, full of cunning and guile. Beneath that lovely plumage and hollow bones beats a tiny little black heart. They chirp their pretty siren songs to soothe our savage sensibilities and native distrust of things disdainful of gravity. They perch in animated form on the fingers of English nannies everywhere, raising their voices in a dazzling, hypnotic duet as if to say "Look at us, pretty bird. Pretty bird. We mean you no harm. Pretty bird."

The happy family movies don't show the nice English nanny's finger turning gangrenous and black before it falls off. They don't show her sweating to death in a Bangladeshi opium den, covered in pustules and bleeding from the eyes, the sweet smoky haze of "China white" her only succor from the agony of mortal sickness. And away in its animated nest the animated bird animated-laughs, its animated evil work done.

The birds remember the early 20th century. They know this stage-play happens in two parts: 1) worldwide flu pandemic and 2) world war.

They want to thin our numbers with disease and then sit back and watch us finish ourselves off with war borne out of desperation and fear.

The jokes on them, the stupid birds. They got the order backward. First we had WWI, then we had the Spanish flu. They've overplayed their hands, the otherwise-magnificent bastards. Instead of devolving into sickly and wounded nation-states ready to lash out with arms, our flu-ravaged psyches agitated by mortal fear, they find us a planet united in an unprecedented effort to stamp out the flu threat before it spreads.

They forgot that the only thing more attractive to human beings than killing other human beings is not being dead ourselves. The appeal of not being dead cannot be overstated. Sure, we'll get to the massive global conflict, but only after we're sure that the sniffles we have are a common cold and not Death By Turkey. We will annihilate ourselves on our timetable, no one else's.

The days when birds rule the planet are going to have to wait. Cruel avian overlords driving the last remnants of humanity to work underground in the birdseed mines is something this generation will never have to endure.

We have much to be thankful for. The avian flu is still not transmissible between humans. We can ameliorate the threat before it spreads from birds to people. If you're inclined to copulate with those of the avian persuasion, don't just pick up any ole dirty bird off the street; take them in. Get them tested first. Just to be doubly safe, if you have to fuck a budgerigar, please wear a condom. The fate of the human race may well depend on it.

And remember: Thanksgiving is coming. Vengeance is at hand.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 0.4


Pops



PS- If the Cubs win the World Series next year, I take it all back. Then we're all definitely fucked and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
- posted by Pops @ 10:20 AM