YR NEW FAVORITE WAR

Or, “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.”

So we’re lobbing missiles at Libya now.

And of course, my conservative friends have been cheerfully circulating this nugget of history on the Facebooks.

In case you’ve been wondering why all this seems so familiar.

The best part, of course, is they now have to admit that Obama has done something they agree with. Of course, once they realize that, they’ll just accuse him of plagiarizing Reagan and being unoriginal. Or for asking the UN for permission first. Or for letting surrender monkeys fire the first volleys. Or something.

Oops! See? Newt Gingrich started laying in as I was typing that. Told you.

Anyway, I’m not particularly thrilled about this. True, I’m also not thrilled at Gaddafi (Qaddafi? Khaddafi?) literally waging war on dissenters. And unlike Reagan’s airstrike in 1986, this is a UN-backed coalition at work, not a unilateral cowboy play.

On the other hand, the Arab League is already nervous that we’re overdoing it. And it probably won’t help that we’re being selective over which dictators we attack on the justification that they’re killing dissenters.

Unless Bahrain is next on the “to-do” list. Then at least we’d be consistent.

Bombing Khaddafi (Qaddafi? Gaddafi?) might put an end to his reign. It might not. As we’ve seen, removing dictators we’ve openly hated for years (well, most of the time) is messy, thankless work.

Is it the right thing to do, given the circumstances? I don't know. Possibly, depending on how things play out. 

I suppose what really bugs me is the attitude of people who have been looking forward to this ever since Reagan’s initial wargasm in ’86 with the usual selective outrage and “F*** YEAH WAR!” machismo. We’re bombing targets and killing people. It might be necessary – that doesn’t make it enjoyable, much less anything to be smug about.

Not to me.

FUN FACT: I was in the US Army in West Germany when that West Berlin club was bombed (I wasn’t at the club, no – I wasn’t even in Berlin). They mobilized us for combat when the airstrike happened, in case East Germany decided to use it as an excuse to retaliate against American imperialist aggression. We suited up in full combat gear and sat in our vehicles waiting for the order. Obviously, nothing else happened.

Here we go again,

This is dF

GREAT MOMENTS IN DOUBLE ENTENDRES

Sexy double entendres have been around since the days of Chaucer and Shakespeare (and probably earlier), and were largely invented so that people could talk about sex without actually mentioning it. (Which pretty much sums up the human condition, really.)

These days, of course, we use double entendres mainly to avoid FCC fines and Wal-mart bans. Popular music has been using double entendres pretty much since the FCC was created, and the Rockinrolls has a rep for talking the double entendre to new levels.

Maybe so. But could any rock band – or in fact any artist – getting radio airplay today get away with a song like this?

Somehow I don’t think so.

That’s not my cat,

This is dF

GREAT MOMENTS IN NON-DOUBLE ENTENDRES

Often popular music resorts to double entendres and euphemisms to get naughty ideas across in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge fashion in Decent Society.

However, there is something to be said for the direct approach.

Lucile Bogan (a.k.a. Bessie Jackson) will now demonstrate.

It's very NSFW, by the way. And yes, they really did talk that way in the 1930s.

I love the part where she cracks up about halfway through the song. Sounds like she’s having a lot of fun.

Yr doing it right,

This is dF