THE GREAT GADFLY:

Don't Think Of It As Oppression...Think Of It As FUN-pression!

I saw a creepy newspaper headline this morning that said "ASHCROFT: PATRIOT ACT DOESN'T GO FAR ENOUGH."

Holy crap, what does he want? Mandatory cavity checks of pre-school students?! Surveillance cameras surgically attached to the skulls of our housepets?! Mandatory labor camps for elderly nuns?!

Sometimes I feel like I live in Mortville.

"I'm surprised she doesn't make us wear our vaginas backwards!"

Yesterday I threw a big hissy fit and decided that I should just quit resisting this whole evil-Republican-totalitarianism thing and just learn to love it, and in fact I should start blindly embracing everything I think is wrong and just freakin' accept all my pet peeves as beautiful, natural and fabulash.

For example, I've always been a staunch proponent of not saying "an" before words that begin with an "h" - the most grating specimen of this is when people say "an historic event". See, that sounds gross and wrong to me. I say "a historic event". I've argued about people with this in the past. I've looked it up. I've backed up my arguments. As have they. But it's one of those things, you know, where there ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy - there's only me and you, and we just disagree.

Until now.

No need to say you're right and I'm wrong, so don't bother. Screw it, you're right. I don't care anymore. I just want to eat an Happy Meal and lay in an hammock and maybe listen to an Hole album or an Hoobastank CD.

So there.

Okay, I wouldn't listen to Hoobastank. I'd rather eat a tire.

Maybe Ashcroft is right. Maybe America IS too free, and not acting patriotic enough. I think every household should have its own helicopter hovering overhead. The kids could go to sleep safe and sound in the glow of the seachlights pouring in through their bedroom windows, and we all know nothing rounds out a hot romantic candlelight dinner than the "chuppa chuppa chuppa" of aggressive propellar blades. Barry White could tell you THAT.

I think we should all shave our heads, wear form-hiding brown parkas, refer to each other as "citizen" and change our names to UPC codes. We should have to eat our meals from toothpaste tubes, and emotions should become illegal*. Dirty movies will be replaced by Spalding Grey performance art monologs, in which he will describe lewd acts, replacing all references to the human anatomy with "that thing" and "you know, down there". It will be legal to capture people with interesting hair and place them on display in zoos.

Flip-flops will be mandatory office attire.

We haven't burned enough records, banned enough books or blacklisted enough artists. Wotta wimpy buncha patriots we are. LET'S GET CRACKING. I want Natalie Maines thanking her lucky stars that she has a low-paying job at a tortilla factory, I want Laura Bush personally assigning me my beach reading and I want every Pearl Jam record ever made to be in unrecognizable shards!!! BRING ME THE HEAD OF JANEANE GAROFALO, SHE'S RUINING IT FOR EVERYONE!!! Plus, I think we should all start eating only microwaved meals from now on, and anyone who doesn't should get life in prison.

Because I'm a patriot, see. And that's how we roll.

OH:

Did anyone catch T.A.T.U. on that MTV Movie award thing last night? What was that supposed to be about? Watching Sean Combs' reaction to the throngs of onstage naked lesbian-for-hire Catholic School Girls was fun - I hadn't seen that kind of behavior since Animal Planet did a documentary on hyaenas. I'd say Russ Meyer should come bursting out of retirement to shoot their next video, but we all know Uncle Russ likes 'em busty. And as for the guys hosting that mess last night...how can two guys so conventionally hot be so bloodcurdlingly gross? Maybe I'm turning into one of the het'rahs.

* Unless you're acting patriotic, in which case you may ululate wildly and/or pound yourself in the head with a big rock.