A Coo Coo Clock for Kerry


Senator Kerry is being upbraided for saying students should work hard and stay in school because if they don't they might get stuck in Iraq. For those of us who came of age during Vietnam that's not an insult to the soldiers, it's an insult to the war. And though I don't know Senator Kerry, if he was making a joke it was actually dependent on the intersection of two parallel lines of logic. Since Bush and his cronies operate on single core processors, they can be forgiven for seeing just one of them.

Back when the Vietnam War was in process, I was not one of the boys who had the money or the grades to get into college without going through the military first. I had two choices when I graduated from high school, joining the military or being drafted into it. The people who avoided the war were people like George Bush. The people who could have escaped it, and did not; the democratic ones, who refused to use connections to avoid service, were men like John Kerry.

So, back to the joke. When humor is examined for logical structure it either depends on exaggeration, tall tales, or it has evolved into the realm of the abstract. In the first instance, Mr. Bush is a comedic genius. In abstract humor there are two lines of logic which run parallel to each other. You are following one of them when suddenly the other intersects, and you realize it has been there all along. This is the money shot. "I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member."

If Kerry was being humorous, it was that if you're like Bush, and don't study and learn something useful, you'll make terrible decisions and end up stuck in the worst, most stupid, expensive and moronic adventure since Vietnam, the Iraq War.

These prigs demanding an apology "for the troops" remind me of the skit from "The Meaning of Life," a Monty Python movie, in which everybody dies because of meaningless trivial pursuit replacing efficient command.

In the skit the men are in a trench during World War One. The officer is trying to move them out and keep them from being killed, but they won't have it. They want to give him a mantle clock, which he gracefully accepts and then tries to get back to business. But no. They are moving a big grandfather clock through the trench because there was a confusion during procurement ... then they want to present him with a wristwatch, a cake, a card, a check ...

Finally he gets annoyed and blurts out something which causes a stunned silence.

"Now you've gone and hurt his feelings, Captain."

They all die quibbling about timepieces and cake, and reveling in their own virtue and the insensitivity of the officer class to their feelings. (The section of the script is reprinted below.)

Maybe things have changed, but I don't remember the military as sensitivity training. As I remember it, there was no joy quite as sweet among sailors as exposing somebody's tender feelings "to see his jaws get tight," as my black friend Chipper used to put it.



Most, if not all of us were perfectly aware that there were a lot of people who were sitting out military service by deferment or through political connections, and that, in the words of John Fogerty, "It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son."

The men and women in Iraq know they're stuck there. Some of them have done three and four tours and been extended just when they were thinking they might go home. There may be a few who don't know that, and if so, then there's something to be said for not telling them. In fact, there's something to be said for checking for brain freeze if anybody in Iraq doesn't know they're stuck in hell, courtesy of Bush and company.

Instead of apologizing, Kerry should repeat, slowly and carefully, that anybody who is in school should study hard and get good grades to avoid getting stuck in Iraq. He can say it because he was the kind of guy who was smart enough to avoid Vietnam, but volunteered to go anyway. He's paid his dues and he doesn't need a coo coo clock from the gang that can't shoot straight.

What he said isn't the same thing as saying you have to be stupid to be in Iraq. Some extraordinarily smart guys who don't have to be there are there, because they have that kind of personal code, like Kerry had during Vietnam. Some sociopaths are there, because the standards are so low they could just set up transfers from the penitentiaries and use Iraq as a half-way house. Most of the uniformed men and women in Iraq are in the middle someplace, and joined because they needed the money and a way to get through college. I seriously doubt there are any of them sitting around trying to deal with hurt feelings around anything Kerry says. If so, they should remember that they don't have to tell anybody and nobody really ought to ask.

Here is the section from the Monty Python Script:

PART III

FIGHTING EACH OTHER

Biggs: [now a soldiers-in-arms] O.K. Blackitt, Sturridge and
Walters you take the buggers on the left flank. Hordern,
Spadger and I will go for the gunpost.

Blackitt: [a Deptford Cockney] Hang on, you'll never make it,
sir... Let us come with you...

Biggs: Do as you're told man.

Blackitt: Righto, skipper. [He starts to go, then stops.] Oh, sir,
sir... if we... if we don't meet again... sir, I'd just like
to say it's been a real privilege fighting alongside you,
sir...

[They are continually ducking as bullets fly past them
and shells burst overhead.]

Biggs: Yes, well I think this is hardly the time or place for a
goodbye speech... eh...

[Biggs is clearly anxious to go.]

Blackitt: No, me, and the lads realise that but... well... we may
never meet again, sir, so...

Biggs: All right, Blackitt, thanks a lot.

Blackitt: No just a mo, sir! You see me and the lads had a little
whip-round, sir, and we bought you something, sir... we bought
you this, sir...

[He produces a handsome ormolu clock from his pack. Biggs
is at a loss for words. He is continually ducking.]

Biggs: Well, I don't know what to say... It's a lovely thought...
thank you... thank you *all*... but I think we'd better... get
to cover now...

[He starts to go.]

Blackitt: Hang on a tick, sir, we got something else for you as
well, sir.

[Two of the others emerge from some bushes with a
grandfather clock.]

Sorry it's another clock, sir... only there was a bit of a
mix-up... Walters thought *he* was buying the present, and
Spadger and I had already got the other one.

Biggs: Well it's beautiful... they're both beau -

[A bullet suddenly shatters the face of the grandfather
clock.]

... But I think we'd better get to cover now, and I'll thank
you properly later...

[Biggs starts to go again but Blackitt hasn't finished.]

Blackitt: And Corporal Sturridge got this for you as well, sir. He
didn't know about the others, sir - it's Swiss.

[He hands over a wristwatch.]

Biggs: Well now that is thoughtful, Sturridge. Good man.

[A shell bursts right overhead. Biggs flings himself down
into the mud.]

Blackitt: And there's a card, sir... from all of us... [He produces
a blood-splattered envelope.]... Sorry about the blood, sir.

Biggs: Thank you all.

[He pockets it and tries to go on.]

Blackitt: Squad, three cheers for Captain Biggs. Hip Hip -

All: Hooray!

Blackitt: Hip Hip -

All: Hoor...

[An almighty burst of machine-gun fire silences most of
them... Blackitt is hit.]

Biggs: Blackitt! Blackitt!

Blackitt: [hurt] Ah! I'll be all right, sir... Oh there's just one
other thing, sir. Spadge, give him the cheque...

Spadger: Oh yeah...

Biggs: Oh now this is really going to far...

Spadger: I don't seem to be able to find it, sir... [Explosion.]
Er, it'll be in Number Four trench... I'll go and get it. [He
starts to crawl off.]

Biggs: [losing his cool] Oh! For Christ's sake forget it, man.

[The others all look at Biggs after this outburst, as if
they can't believe this ingratitude.]

Blackitt: Oh! Ah!

Spadger: You shouldn't have said that, sir. You've hurt his
feelings now...

Blackitt: Don't mind me, Spadge... Toffs is all the same... One
minute it's all 'please' and 'thank you', the next they'll
kick you in the teeth...

Walters: Let's not give him the cake...

Biggs: I don't want *any* cake...

Spadger: Look, Blackitt cooked it specially for you, you bastard.

[They all look at Blackitt rolling in the mud.]

Sturridge: Yeah, he saved his rations for six weeks.

Biggs: I'm sorry, I don't mean to be ungrateful...

Blackitt: I'll be all right.

[Shell crashes. Blackitt dies.]

Spadger: Blackie! Blackie! [He turns to Biggs with tears in his
eyes.] Look at him... [He pulls up the supine form of
Blackitt.] He worked on that cake like no-one else I've ever
known. [He props him in the mud again.] Some nights it was so
cold we could hardly move, but Blackie'd de out there -
slicing lemons, mixing the sugar and the almonds... I mean you
try getting butter melted at fifteen below zero! There's love
in that cake... [He picks up Blackitt again.] This man's love
and this man's care and this man's - Aarggh!
[He gets shot.]

[Biggs runs over to them in horror.]

Biggs: Oh my Christ!

Sturridge: You bastard.

Biggs: All right! All right! We will eat the cake. They're right...
it's too good a cake not to eat. get the plates and knives,
Walters...

Walters: Yes, sir... how many plates?

Biggs: Six.

[A shot rings out. Walters drops dead.]

Biggs: Er... no... better make it five.

Sturridge: Tablecloth, sir...?

Biggs: Yes, get the tablecloth...!

[Explosion. Sturridge gets shot.]

Biggs: No no no, I'll get the tablecloth and you'd better get the
gate-leg table, Hordern.

[Hordern is shot in the leg.]

Hordern: I'll bring two sir, in case one gets scrumpled...

[Suddenly we find this has all been a film, which a
General now stops.]

General: Well, of course, warfare isn't all fun. Right, stop that.
It's all very well to laugh at the Military, but when one
considers the meaning of life it is a struggle between
alternative viewpoints of life itself. And without the
ability to defend one's own viewpoint against other perhaps
more aggressive ideologies then reasonableness and moderation
could quite simply disappear. That is why we'll always need an
army and may God strike me down were it to be otherwise.

[The Hand of god descends and vaporizes him.]

[The audience of two old ladies and two kids applauds
hesitantly.]

Posted: Wed - November 1, 2006 at 03:22 PM