Drubbed!

When I started thinking about posting a parody of Obama’s right-wing bashers, people around me recommended caution, saying I might be misread. But did I listen? I, who in the face of mounting evidence continue to deny the undeniable–and still believe that from my computer to your eyes, nothing is ever distorted–stuck to my guns (and that from someone who deplores the tepid gun-control laws!). Nah, I said, no way! People will understand, they know where I come from. My arguments were that regular readers of my blog a) know me well enough by now to be familiar with my precise place on the political spectrum (dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, leaning toward liberal, and b) will recognize parody for what it is.

“All the Way In,” my novel about Petraeus

It doesn’t look as though my financial situation is going to right itself unless I take action. Let’s see… Oh, I know, I’m a writer, so how about—once again—trying to write a book that will sell? I mull over plot and characters for a few days until I come up with something. I call Rob, my agent.
“There’s this character, let’s call her Paula, a beautiful, ambitious, scheming woman—married, with kids—who manages to gain access to a four-star general in a war zone. This guy, a much admired public figure—also married with grown children of his own—is flattered when she tells him she wants to write his biography. Soon they go for morning runs on which she interviews him. They often continue the interview process under his desk.”
“Why under his desk?”

Leave that train in the station

Much like Christ used parables, politicians and journalists pile on metaphor after metaphor. Of those, none is as useful, generic and ubiquitous as the train one. But despite Mae West’s quip that too much of a good thing is a wonderful thing, too much of a good thing can actually sit quite heavy on the stomach. Case in point, a quote in the August 19 Washington Post, from a former Yeltsin aide, Georgy Satarov, remembering the good times.