Rampant Iconography Alert

I don't know what disturbs me more:

a) The president making a speech on an aircraft carrier, stating the fighting is over (with icing of the president actually being flown to the aircraft carrier in a fighter jet) Note, this has been cancelled (or changed) due to security concerns.

b) Enhancing your re-election hopes via Ground Zero.

Image A invokes the twin-headed beast of the parties signing the treaty to end World War 2 in the Pacific, and the illusion of a president that's a top gun, ready to commandeer a fighter plane and bomb those evildoers himself, if he has to. Yet, this time, it's one party claiming the fighting is over, and no opposing leader in sight to formally put writ to paper. In fact, the opposing leader is in the wind. The aircraft carrier, the now-altered landing, the speech...it's all faux-might in the backdrop of misused power, and it's the continued executive-level eroticism with military steel and Potemkin crowds. What's missing from the charade is resolution: Saddam Hussein is missing, U.S. soldiers are killing protesters Kent State style, the power isn't back on, the museums are empty, and Iraqi citizens have resorted to burning garbage because there is no trash service. Yet, it's only by starting this war himself can Bush say when it's over. Let the slow, steady ignoring of old Babylon begin, but only after the glossy photo-op for the Foreign Policy scrapbook is over.

Image B is a political cluster bomb, designed to penetrate the defenses of the American voter, calloused by unending cycles of cheap political ploys and well-scripted visuals to make you stop thinking and start loving the supreme leader without question. Look at the emoting at Ground Zero, circa fall 2004. The flags, the monopolized patriotism, the allusions from the illuminated convention podium that more evil awaits our justice. See the man make the slaughter ground holy with his tears and then watch as he rides back into the White House on the powdered remains of 3,000 workers in the wrong place at the wrong time. The result? You are either enamored or made more cynical by the whole circus, casting a ballot for power without wisdom or crying at the end of the bar at Cafe Democracy.

Of course, not finding any Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction is an outrage gimme, along with the gringo viceroy of Iraq getting all high school pep rally on us, saying Americans should beat their chests with pride over pounding Iraq into the earth. We won, they lost. Just smile, damnit.

And it begins to resemble that sickly sensation you get when you walk into a spider web, the ghostly strands sticking all over you; and you struggle with fumbling fingers to pluck the strands out, but it's no use. You always pick more out when you think you are safe, leading you to pull frantically, randomly in the air for escape, twisting yourself and staggering for freedom, resorting to beating yourself on the head and shoulders trying to get the delicate yet sinister cling from you.

Teevee

South Park was in top form last night. Here in the states, you can catch the reruns of Wednesday's episode on Saturday night, and I advise you to TiVo or tape yourself some clever satire. This time, greedy Native American casino owners try to drive the white bread South Park residents off their land. You can imagine where it goes from there. SARS makes a guest appearance.

David Byrne was on The Simpsons Sunday night, singing about hating Ned Flanders, right? I'm not the only person who saw that. Please don't tell me I hallucinated that.

If anyone can get me an mp3 of David Byrne's anti-Ned Flanders song, I will deeply be in your debt.

Not that I'm endorsing music piracy or anything.