Saturday, February 25, 2006

A Chatechism

What metaphoric verb phrase, the employment of which serves to remind the attentive reader of the inevitable occurrence of its own opposite, can, according to the Sunday Washington Post Editorial Page, be ascribed to the wave of sectarian violence that seemed to push Iraq to the brink of a civil war this week, at least for now?

It has ebbed.

Thank you. If the relative peace holds, how might one characterize the determination demonstrated by political and religious leaders to prevent communal bloodshed?

It is encouraging.

What dual and conflicting emotions were experienced by US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, in such sufficiency that he was constrained to aver that the crisis had created "a moment of opportunity" for Iraq?

He was encouraged -- or desperate.

In which direction must the Iraqi Interior Ministry and its death squads be cleaned if US funding for Iraqi police and security forces is not to be withdrawn?

Up.

And in what mythological punitive locale does the likelihood of this occurring invite the comparison of a snowball's chance?

Hell.

Given the thesis that the US Ambassador is threatening the Iraqi Government with nonsupport and financial penury should they fail to purge the Interior Ministry of thugs and brigands, what word best provides the direct object of the historico-excrementational assertion, "I done laughed till I nearly shit"?

Myself.

Does some passive-aggressive playground sneer express the Iraqi government's sole choice of a response to such a comically empty threat?

What are you, gonna tell on me?

What pronoun might be accurately employed to stand for the subject of the verb-phrase "are so fucked"?

We.

Your pessimism does not become you.

Bite me.

Oh, no: Bite me.

(Apologies to Myles na Gopaleen.)

4 comments:

Will Divide said...

flann got it, of course, from jimmy j.'s 'ithaca' chapt...

Neil Shakespeare said...

I think they need to return to the strategy of threatening suicide bombers with the death penalty. They will be too scared to commit suicide if they know that if they don't succeed they're going to die. Remember: if you're swimming and it starts to rain, you must go under water to avoid getting wet.

E.Wurzel said...

Ah, Ithaca. One of my fave chapters of The Book.

How did they take leave, one of the other, in separation?

Standing perpendicular at the same door and on different sides of its base, the lines of their valedictory arms, meeting at any point and forming any angle less than the sum of two right angles.

What sound accompanied the union of their tangent, the disunion of their (respectively) centrifugal and centripetal hands?

The sound of the peal of the hour of the night by the chime of the bells in the church of Saint George.

What echoes of that sound were by both and each heard?

By Stephen:

Liliata rutilantium. Turma circumdet.
Iubilantium te virginum. Chorus excipiat.

By Bloom:

Heigho, heigho,
Heigho, heigho.

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