HAPPY GOOD FRIDAY, EVERYBODY

Kelso's still working on The Petra Puzzle and this is going to get a little heavy, so let's start with a nice, clean, completely irrelevant joke.

A dog walks in to an employment agency and asks to see a counselor. The stunned receptionist rings one at random who comes out and escorts the dog to a desk. The dog explains that he's looking for work. The even more stunned counselor says "well, why don't you try the circus?" The dog answers "why would the circus need a plumber?"

Palates cleansed? Good. Here we go. If you go to www.intrade.com (the former Tradesports) and follow the links to the Iran futures, you will observe that "Israeli/US Overt Strike On Iran" for December 07...er...delivery is trading at a mid-point of 22.5p-in-the-pound. For those readers who don't know finance, that means that traders are pricing the probability of such an attack by the end of trading on the third Friday of this coming December at 22.5%. In gambling argot, the price of such an event is 7/2 against. 7/2 against! Not 100,000/1 against, 7/2 against! How would you like it if someone told you that while you're surely an underdog to have terminal cancer by the third Friday this December, you're chances are only 7/2 against? You'd be pissing your pants. Well, get some Depends, friends. That's what you're being told.

Would someone who knows about these things please explain how we got to this point? And if Tim Russert, David Gergen, Chris Matthews, Wolf Blitzer, Candy Crowley, Adam Nagourney, David Brooks or any other "expert" would care to explain why this is good, Kelso's listening. But Kelso thinks it's fucked. But please spare everybody the "nuclear capabilities" horseshit. There are nuclear weapons everywhere. Kelso doesn't know enough about international affairs to cover the waterfront, but it sure seemed that despite the Iranian head-of-state's foolish comments about the Holocaust and his conclave of international Holocaust deniers, Iran was sitting on ready for an invitation to join the "first world." For better or worse, Iranians are not Arabs. They are Persians and consider themselves "above all that." Ever meet one? Just take a leisurely drive down Westwood Boulevard. Take a left on Santa Monica. Go into Beverly Hills. Park and take a stroll around. You think you're so great because you're a white American? They think you're low-class, uneducated shit.

Goddamn it, 15% of Iranians in Iran are Jewish! And the majority of Israelis are utterly opposed to any of this bellicosity. So, effectively what the neo-cons of AIPAC and PNAC are saying is that they want to join up with -- hell, lead -- the Ohmert government of Israel, all of the Aryan fuck-heads of the Bush Administration, and the Insane Fundamentalist Minority of the U.S.A. into an action that will kill millions of Iranian Jews within days along with 10s of millions of Iranian Muslims, Christians and Atheists, certainly lead to the destruction of the state of Israel within weeks, and probably lead to worldwide nuclear war within a month? For what? For the protection of Israel? Nobody's that stupid. So, maybe it's for some imperial fantasy in which the U.S.A. and Israel re-conquer the Middle-East and then the rest of the world (heh-heh, Smithers...an aside: has anyone noticed how many self-hating queers are in positions of power in the Bush Adminsitration?). Or maybe it's just for fun. Boy, these are some tough customers.

Tough customers. Yes, here we go. Don't worry. We're getting to the point. Just a couple of bends in the river left. Tough customers, yes, just keep that in mind. Among the more asinine things Jesse Jackson said in 1984 in defense of his "hymietown" remark was something to the effect of "well, as there's Black Holocaust going on in America, Blacks see Jews as just White people who are part of the system" Oh really, Jesse? Kelso will certainly grant you all the neo-cons and neo-libs, but in Kelso's live experience actual Black/Jewish political discourse is quite specific and from the Black side of the argument "Jewish" is something altogether different from "White." [Lou Reed had something kind of cool to say on this subject on his album New York, and something else kind of neat: in the world of event-planning "urban" is code for Black, "upscale" is code for Jewish, but we digress. What else is new?]. OK, someone please explain how it is that specificity is not lost on Black America but is somehow lost on the Republican third of the Jewish America as well as a lot of the liberal Jewish fence-sitters who don't like Bush but lurrved Giuliani's mayoralty?

Finally, let's knit. What began this meditation was Petra's life story and the horrors of "the other thing" in Colombia. Does anyone remember "the other thing" in the United States and Canada? Some names ring a bell: Bronfman, Schenley, Schultz, Siegel, Murder Inc.? For god's sakes turn over a rock in ANY American Jewish family and what the fuck do you think you'll find? Clean hands and a bunch of dentists? Right. And the moon is made of green cheese. You'll find the illest shit imaginable and terrible, terrible darkness and depression. Tough fucking customers. And not in the AIPAC-PNAC-Commentary-hands-off-let's-let-the goyim-do-our violence-for-us-way. It's the way of "the other thing." So, why my brothers of the right do you want so bad to be White? Why is Pat Robertson your friend? Why does your fantasy of your heritage have to be so fucking pure? Why does your vision of Israel have to be Sunday School shit backing pretensions to empire? Israel isn't Englewood, New Jersey. It's a socialist, European country full of bad-asses. Let's accept what we are and even laugh about it if we can. If we can do anything, it's have a dark laugh. A laugh. Some identification with "the other" because of "the other thing." Some compassion and -- maybe, maybe -- some extended periods without war. Life is just too short and in the words of the well-known anti-Semite T.S. Eliot we measure it out "in coffee spoons."

Have fun. Have sex. Live long. Make money. Be safe. And please drop the Empire shit. What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?

Pittsburgh Pirates 3-0, baby.

Kelso's Nuts love you.