But getting ourselves out of this situation is going to require that Americans as a nation take a look at some very ugly aspects of ourselves. Let's look at the excuses we gave ourselves, and admit we lied to ourselves more than any president ever could.

1) Afghanistan/Iraq played pivital roles in the attack on America.

There's a head scratcher for you. Even the most dumbed down accounts repeated to redundancy that hijackers were mostly Saudis with Egyptian collaborators and leaders. I almost had my face rearranged(admittedly a possible improvement) for even asking this at the time.

2) Weapons of mass destruction

Another one for the genius brigade. Had everyone forgotten about the Pakistani A-tests? And that they were in response to India?

3) They were terrorist training grounds.

Unspeakably laughable. Anybody heard of Syria?

Meanwhile, you, I, and the rest of America thought nothing of putting the faces of Hussein's sons' corpses on the TV. We have all been complicit in the general silence. Who asked how many lives were at stake?

Hagstrom Time Travel Atlas
Current mood: chipper
Category: Travel and Places

First Volume

Ungracefully aging ex-altar boy, Darius ("Weasel")Wheeler III once considered a weekend with two women and a case of Scotch a solid long term proposition.

But it's been three years since this one time guitar slinger/jailhouse teacher/independent contractor abruptly abandoned the tri-state saloon circuit to take his place in the trenches of the real world.

Weasel's income is no longer a patchwork quilt from erstwhile employers like Norman the Neck and Dirty Poncho Friedman. Now he draws a steady if measly check from GSI, Guitar Systems International-Terrestrial Retail Music Division.

For the first time in his chaotic existence, Wheeler has consistently held one job, almost pays his bills on time, and knows what it means to worry about next year instead of last month's back due cut off notices. He's found resignation, if not comfort, in his new found routine.

Like most true musicians, Weasel`s a creature of habit. So now he's determined to remain a rat in the race of American retail labor all the way to the coffin, despite the best efforts of his current boss to terminate him.

Until now, this corporate world has seemed rock solid, if tedious. But someone's ripped a hole in the fabric of human time. And now, neither free market capitalism, nor retail can never be the same.

The phone rings early one workaday morning. It's the long missing, and optimistically presumed dead, Norman the Neck calling from a Teal Mercedes. Norman has a sure fire money maker, and is ready to put massive dollars in Weasel's pocket yesterday. All he needs in return is that Weasel travel to the past and pull a simple jail house hit on the mob informant who has already murdered Norm.

Later that day, Weasel gets a call at work from a beloved ex-girlfriend who marries Heaven and Hell in the bedroom,Monica! She wants to sleep with him again, but she needs bail money the day before yesterday, or she`ll get killed in a Brazilian snuff film next year.

Is it any wonder Weasel doesn't want to return the urgent phone message he's gotten from a horn player named Gabriel, who needs him for the ultimate gig?

The Sausage String Theory of the completeness of shriveling time, associated with the shadowy followers of rogue post-Pythagorean mystic Rasputin's Bastard, is rumored to provide a skeleton key to this time travel enigma. However, press releases from the closely knit group emphatically deny their own existence, as well as any sort of multi-dimensional String Theory based upon sausages. The stakes are too high, the pay is too low, and they all happen to be highly insulted Vegetarians.

RELIGIONS AND THEIR SAINTS

JUDAISM WILL BE MOST EFFICACIOUSLY  OPPRESSIVE TO JEWISH MYSTICS.
ISLAMIC MYSTICISM HAS ALWAYS HAD TO OPERATE UNDER THE GUISE OF IDIOCY.
XIAN MYSTICISM HAS LONG TAKEN REFUGE IN LUNACY.
BUDDHIST MYSTICS HAVE OFTEN BECOME SCHOLARS OF APPLIED FORCE.

THE GREATER THE DEPTH OF A MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE, THE LESSER THE LIKELIHOOD THAT THE PERCEPT IS TO EXPOSE IT.

TO BE A SAINT OF ANY KIND IS TO HAVE MET DEMONS.
TO BE A DEMON OF ANY KIND IS TO HAVE KNOWN ANGELS.
SAINTS ARE WISELY AVOIDED.