Image by KirrilyRobert via Flickr

You might think that keeping a war secret would be impossible. For one thing, they’re really noisy. And then there are all those bodies lying around.

But if anyone can do it, it’s us. When it comes to finding new and exciting ways to conduct warfare, who gives battle more innovatively (or frequently) than the U.S.?

So I wasn’t too surprised at recent news reports intimating that we’re having a secret war in Pakistan. Not with Pakistan, of course. We don’t fight countries much anymore. It’s those damn terrorists. Wherever you go, there they are.

It’s gotten to the point where we can invade pretty much any country at random and bingo! A bunch of terrorists is there waiting to fight us.

In places like Pakistan, you have to fight the damn terrorists on the QT, because, as I understand it, if the Pakistanis ever find out they’ll get so mad they’ll overthrow their government, the one we’re propping up, and then the terrorists will become the government and the war will get bigger, noisier, bloodier, more expensive and worst of all, incredibly non-secret. They’re very touchy, those Pakistanis.

Fortunately, we’ve developed stealthy weapons such as the Predator Drone, which lurks around the skies, ducking behind clouds a lot. When in the open, it whistles, looks casual and pretends to be a tourist. Should it spot an enemy, it drops a rather subtle and unassuming guided missile on him.

This way, we avoid having a few hundred thousand noisy, sweaty troops clomping around the countryside, which is always a dead giveaway that there’s a war on.

So the thing is, whatever you do, don’t tell the Pakistanis. If you know a Pakistani, talk with him about sports, weather, fashion, the new season of Lost, anything but war.

In New York and other large northeastern cities, you’ll mostly have to be careful not to mention the war while riding in taxis unless, of course, the driver is talking on his cell phone, in which case he’ll be too distracted to overhear you.

Personally, I think this is a very small sacrifice to ask of my fellow Americans in support of our secret war effort. In general, if you must talk about the war, just keep your voice down and avoid excited gesticulation.

We all know how successful the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy has been at handling the gays-in-the-military issue. Well, now we’re just applying it to an entire war.

By the way, I hate to bring this up but it’s possible we’re fighting other wars, too, wars so secret that even The New York Times doesn’t know about them.

If we are and you’re in on it, please don’t tell me. I’m having enough trouble keeping the Pakistan war secret. I almost mentioned it to my gossipy neighbor Frieda the other day.

If she finds out, forget it; it’ll be all over the neighborhood.

My muse. (Image by freeparking via Flickr)

I knew it was a mistake. I knew nobody cares about the Winter Olympics.

“Do it,” my muse cried out to me. “Do a fake guide to the Vancouver games. Winter sports are so silly, it’ll be a giggle and a half.”

My muse is a bitch.

Deep down I knew she was leading me on but I couldn’t resist. I had what I thought were some first-rate gags:

The Siamese-twin ice-dancing team. The very intense biathlon guy who’s a sniper just back from Afghanistan. The introduction of snowball fighting as an Olympic event. The lady who luges on her belly, revolutionizing the sport. I’m not going to go false modest; this was good stuff.

The total views after  a full day on the Website: 45.

Now I’m not Matt Taibi but 45 hits are pathetic even for me.

OK, maybe the headline

Keep an eye on these Olympians:

America’s top hopes for Vancouver gold

was too deadpan. But that just proves my point. Those readers who mistakenly thought the piece was really about Vancouver didn’t read it.

Nobody cares about the fucking Winter Olympics.

Nor, most likely, the summer ones either. Nor the Late Fall Just Before Halloween Olympics.

So those of you who are making-fun-of-the-Winter- Olympics fans—both of you—don’t bother pleading with me.

Never again.

Image via Wikipedia

With only a few days to go before the Winter Olympic Games open in Vancouver, U.S. athletes stand their best chance in many years to grab some precious metal. Believe me, this time around you’ll be robbing yourself of incredible sports action if you cop your usual “who cares about the boring Winter Olympics” attitude. Here now, our nation’s top-ranked prospects:

Rob Kretchmander was a highly decorated long-range opposing-force-reduction contractor (sniper) in Afghanistan before making the U.S. biathlon team. In preliminaries held in Dubai, Rob bull’s-eyed an unprecedented 825 targets in a row and also took out a terrorist suspect lurking near the range. Though his shooting skills are downright uncanny, Rob’s skiing is a bit rusty, and his eligibility may depend on whether Olympics officials allow him to compete at night, his favored game time, using his trusty infrared scope.

The brother-sister team of Tom and Jennifer Flench represent America’s best shot at mixed-pairs ice dancing triumph since the unforgettable but tragic Yevgeny Putshakov and Lori Shigitsu gold-medaled in 2002. “I have never in my coaching career seen such remarkable coordination,” says noted coach Bello Dinsky. “They’re only 18 but they move as though they were joined at the hip which, come to think of it, they are.” It’s true! Tom and Jennifer are conjoined siblings, or Siamese twins, if you will, who, with hard work and perseverance, have miraculously turned what some might consider a “handicap” into an advantage we all can envy.

People sometimes used to call the middle position on the five-man bobsled the “forgotten man,” but Toby Rotterwild has emphatically put the stopper on that cliché. “Toby’s a born leader,” says awed teammate Frank Bebkin. “Or maybe I should say a born leaner. When he leans to the left, we all lean to the left. It’s not political. You just want to be where Toby is. He’s that good.” Though he missed a month of sitting practice in December due to a sprained left buttock, Toby is back with a vengeance, recently telling a sports blogger, “I’m ready. My ass is as sharp as it’s ever been.”

In women’s luge, a sport long dominated by the Nepalese, America suddenly has not just a hot contender but the odds-on favorite. Patti Untermeyer has literally turned the world of  luge upside down by becoming the first person to fling herself downhill headfirst and on her stomach. “I don’t know why nobody ever thought of this before,” says famed Belgian luge commentator Alain Dubermongelet. “I guess it was just an old tradition to luge feet first and on your back.” Boldly reversing her position, Patti found she could shave .003 of a second off her usual time which, in this intensely competitive event, was enough to rocket her to the top of the pack. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Patti Untermeyer has revolutionized her sport! Or as Dubermongelet puts it: “Patti’s prone to win.”

A demonstration sport until this year, two-man snowball fighting is now an official Olympic event and the U.S. has terrific prospects in the team of Bill Bonchek and Tad Montell. Growing up as neighborhood bullies in Minneapolis, Bill and Tad dominated their schoolyard snowball fights, frequently making other boys cry. Three years ago, they found they could boost their efficiency with Bill packing and Tad throwing. “It’s as much about throw rate as it is accuracy,” says Tad. “That and making sure you put a rock in each snowball.”

Drawing of J.D. Salinger by Robert Grossman

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll want to know is why I holed up in New Hampshire like a hermit for practically my whole life and how much great stuff I wrote and never published but just stashed in the attic, where the goddamn squirrels are probably nibbling on it, and all that Silas Marner kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that tabloid garbage bores me and in the second place, I’m not feeling so hot on account of I’m dead.

I’m just going to tell you all this madman stuff that’s happened to me since I kicked off, which in a way was kind of a relief, though it’s no picnic either. Everyone thinks heaven is such a terrific place. The way people talk, you’d think it was a paradise or something but the truth is, it’s for the birds.

First of all, the security is even worse than down on Earth. I had to stand in line about four hours before I even got to the gate, where some moron made me go through a metal detector even though I have no goddamn body. Up here it’s just your soul, which is about the size of a Barbie doll and more or less see-through but when I pointed this out, the moron laughed and said, “You think this is bad, you should see what they go through in Hell.” Then he went into what he obviously thought was a knee-slapping impression of some poor jerk getting his body cavities inspected with a red-hot security wand. I didn’t crack a smile.

Anyway, I finally got settled in my room, which sucked. The brochure said you’re supposed to have “a sublime view of the waterfall, the perpetual rainbow” and all but all I got was a little sliver of the skyline of downtown heaven. Everyone said it would knock me out but trust me, half the time it’s too cloudy to even see the sliver.

Even worse, it turned out I had a roommate. Me! A roommate! I told them about a thousand times, “No goddamn roomie! Here I am about the most famous recluse in the history of reclusiveness and you’re giving me a roommate?” But they just smiled, which they do a lot up here, the phony bastards, and said, “Sorry, but we’re overcrowded, due to all the boomers starting to come in.”

And then the roommate showed up and it was Edgar Allen Poe, who nobody wants to room with since he’s a total lush and has bottles stashed all over the place and is forever whining about how he never made any money or about his tragic lost love. And then I can’t get any shuteye because the loser has about eighteen nightmares a night and wakes up screaming that he’s getting tortured by the Inquisition or buried alive or having his eyes pecked out by a talking raven or some such crap.

Yesterday, they threw me a kind of reception, where all these celebrities and literary hotshots were supposed to attend but aside from Truman Capote, who goes to everything, the pickings were pretty slim. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the MC. He mumbled a lot and put everyone to sleep and I don’t think the guy ever read a word I wrote. Of course, good old Edgar tagged along and got high as a kite on the sherry and puked all over Edith Wharton’s shoes.

To tell you the truth, about the only guy I really wanted to meet up here was Jesus, who I always thought was pretty cool, but they say he never shows up anywhere because he’s kind of perpetually depressed. I can understand it. All that crap he went through and then it turns out everyone’s still as phony and mean and screwed up as ever.

That’s all I’m going to tell about. I could probably tell about what God whispered in my ear when I took his name in vain or about Marilyn Monroe asking for my e-mail address but that doesn’t interest me right now. What I’m going to do now is try to work in a good nap before Edgar gets back from the drunk tank and starts boring me to death again.

Justice Kennedy (Image by Getty Images via Daylife)

In a fractious 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled today that corporations can be subjected to capital punishment for committing crimes causing loss of life.

“Frankly, I do not feel completely comfortable with my own logic,” wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, speaking for the majority. “But it is important to follow precedent and we recently established the precedent that corporations are pretty much individuals. That means we can execute them if we feel like it, just as we execute ordinary people.”

The new ruling came at the expense of Xyzyx Associates, (formerly Atrocity Corp.) a Texas-based defense contractor supplying bodyguards to corrupt warlords in Afghanistan. Sixteen of the company’s employees were convicted last year of blowing up an Afghan village that had failed to pay “taxes” to the local potentate.

At its trial in Houston, the entire company, from CEO to janitorial staff, was sentenced to die by lethal injection after its insanity plea was snickered at by a jury. It is now filing appeals and praying a lot while incarcerated in expanded death rows at two suddenly overcrowded Texas prisons.

Speaking for the minority, Justice John Paul Stephens filed a stinging dissent, declaring, “The framers of the Constitution would not have approved of this perverse and grotesque decision. Well, most of them wouldn’t. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney might have but he was a nut. Anyway, we are going down a bad road here and our tire is going flat. Or something. I’m not good at metaphors. That’s more Scalia’s department.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “I think this is good. I like the death penalty. It is a fine penalty and I like it.” Thomas later filed a dissent against his own opinion, observing, “Oh but wait! They’re gonna kill a corporation? That’s not right. Corporations are good. I like corporations because they’re nice. Please don’t kill them. Please. I am very sad now and I want some ice cream.”

The disagreement between the justices was so bitter that at one point during the question period, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Sonia Sotomayor exchanged punches after arguing over the definition of the word “trope.” Both were treated at a nearby hospital for minor injuries.