Psst.

What?

Over here.

Who are you?

Never mind about that. I've got a proposition for you.

Uh huh?

There's some money in it for you. Maybe something bigger than money.

Something against the law, I'm guessing?

Not against the laws of the land, if that's what you mean.

So--

It might be ever so slightly against the laws of nature, if you get my drift.

My mind spins.

I might be able to help you out with the ten grand Captain Leibniz wants for his monadic insurance.

How'd you know about that?

Never mind. Are you interested?

I suppose. Tentatively.

Well, that's perfect, actually. It's through the Fluid Tentativity that you will need to pass.

The Fluid Tentativity?

Exactly. The source of all turbulence.

You mean, like in water?

In water, in air, in the currents of time and salvation. It's all the same turbulence.

Uh huh. And you would need me to do what, exactly?

I, uh--I lost my cell phone.

Yes?

And, well--I dropped it in the Fluid Tentativity. I need it back.

What, are you nuts? Just get a new one!

I can't. I'd rather not say why.

Well but--

Okay, okay, I'll tell you, sheesh, gimme a fuckin break already! It's got voicemail messages from Jesus on it, and the way the Fluid Tentativity works, there's no telling where it'll turn up. My wife reads those messages, she'll kill me.

What, she's some kind of atheist or something? Doesn't want you talking to Jesus?

Talking she can handle. The stuff he remembers us doing she can't handle.

But--

Look, are you interested, or not? I'll pay you $10,000 to get that cell phone back.

In advance?

Don't jerk my chain. You'll never come back and I'll be out $10,000 for nothing.

Oh, I'll never come back! That makes it attractive. What, this Fluid Tentativity is going to flush me down into the Bottomless Pit or something?

No, no, nothing like that. You'll just run away with my money, is all's I'm saying. It's perfectly safe. I've been out in the Fluid Tentativity a million times. It's a cakewalk.

Then why don't you go get it yourself?

I--let's just say I used to be the Commandant of this place, till Jesus started coming around, and--

Okay, okay. Tell me what to do.

You'll do it?

We'll see.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 1:55 PM

Hi, I'm the staff metaphysician, Thomas Aquinas. The Commandant thought maybe you could use my help.

Thomas Aquinas? Not--

The medieval scholastic? No, I'm afraid not. My parents tell me we're descended from him--hence the name. He was my great-great-great-whatever grandfather.

So, uh--

I understand you're contemplating going out into the Ding-an-sich.

I have to, yes. It's the only way to get in touch with Jesus and Mohammed. They're out there performing--this instant, I believe.

Every instant, in fact.

Yes, quite.

And I understand they gave you a card of some sort?

That's right, yes.

May I see the card?

Why--yes. I have it here somewhere. But--

I'm just wondering if it's one of the special Be Not Subsumed cards. You know, with the sticker in the corner.

Sticker? I never noticed any sticker. Dammit, where did I put that? I know it's in here somewhere. I can never find anything in this damn wallet.

It would be up on the top right-hand corner. With that sticker you should be able to navigate through the Ding-an-sich without metaphysical mishap.

Here it is! Now--




See here? This. Oh dear.

What?

Well, it's partially rubbed off. See?

What--what does that mean? I can't go?

I don't know. You might be okay. Then again--

But--isn't there some way to run a test, or something? Some kind of metaphysical Geiger counter or something? See if it still has its juice?

Hm. Interesting. Not exactly, but--I think I might know who to ask.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 10:07 AM

Add to shopping cart
Keep shopping
Be saved
Enter Ding-an-sich
Join the Republican Party

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 9:29 PM

Well, I see you leftists are at it again, smearing good patriotic Americans like Alberto Gonzales for protecting America, because, of course, you hate America and don't want her protected. You'd love for al Qaeda to crash a plane into the White House, wouldn't you? Or into the Fox News studio building?

I have a sense of humor. I can laugh at myself same as anybody. I laughed when I read your little spoof of my troubles with that scheming evil witch Andrea Makris, may she burn in hell, the little cocktease. I thought it was funny, ha ha, when you killed me, twice--once by Karl Rove in dildo form, again by Abraham Lincoln.

But I can't stand by idly while you slime a great Hispanic-American patriot like Alberto Gonzales. Sometimes I'm amazed at the racism on the left: you just can't stand the fact that our great President is so open-hearted and appoints African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans to positions of responsibility, can you? You have to drag down the great minority voices in the current administration, Colin Powell for supposedly "lying" to the UN about WMDs in Iraq, Condoleezza Rice for supposedly stonewalling the 9/11 Commission, and now poor Mr. Gonzales, who only wanted to protect the country he loves so much, El Norte.

The most amazing thing of all, though, is that you leftists seem to think that the Geneva Conventions apply to terrorists! You seem to think that we are obliged to extend the same democratic rights to unprincipled people who attack us as we do to our own upright citizens who don't break the law! Why, if you had your way, America would be extending the same democratic rights to everybody--even the trouble-makers in Iraq, who perversely, stubbornly, keep refusing to accept the democratic system we've been trying to demonstrate to them over the last year and a half. It almost seems as if you were trying to set up a system whereby people were somehow automatically entitled to democratic rights, instead of having to earn them through their law-abiding behavior!

Look, if you hate America so much that you need to smear the people who are protecting her from foreign aggression, maybe you need to move to Iraq, where the people have no such protection against foreign aggression, and as a result live, I mean lived, in terror. Maybe then you'd be happy, hmm?

Sincerely,
Bill O'Reilly
Pundit

PS It's typical left-wing gullibility to accept as gospel truth whatever baseless slanders and vicious smears al-Jazeera sees fit to publish, and actually believe that Guantanamo Bay detainees have converted American guards to Islam. You people will believe anything!

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 4:27 PM

You see, chaplain, we've developed a sort of problem lately.

"Problem"?

Well, maybe not a problem. Maybe more of a dilemma.

"Dilemma"?

Well, maybe not a dilemma. Maybe more of a situation. An event horizon, if you will.

Perhaps you could describe it to me?

The thing is, word has gotten out that some of our guards here have, well--converted to Islam.

I see. And because I'm a Sufi chaplain you thought I could minister to--

No, no, chaplain. Let's not get off on the wrong foot here.

But you said--

I said we had a problem.

A dilemma, you said.

Precisely.

A situation. An event horizon.

You have it exactly, chaplain. And what we want you to do is to convert them back.

Excuse me?

Convert them back to Christianity.

But how could I--what would--but I'm not a Christian!

But you're a chaplain, aren't you?

Yes. A Sufi chaplain.

So all we're asking you to do is your job. Just for a new employer. Seeing as how the old one fired you, and all.

But you must understand that Sufism--

And for every inmate you convert back to Christianity, we'll take one eon off your sentence.

Inmate? I thought we were talking about guards.

Guards? Heavens, no. The guards that converted have been tried, convicted, and executed for fraternizing with the enemy. No, I'm talking about the terrorists, of course. We don't want them converting any more guards.

Then in what sense would I be converting them back to Christianity?

Back to where God wants them, of course.

I see. And--eons off my sentence?

One for each convert.

And how long is an eon, exactly?

We take it in the original Greek sense of the word, aion, of course: an indefinitely long period of time.

Of course.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 1:20 PM

Name?

Spiriti Sanctiblogger.

Rank?

Uh--Ph.D.?

Rank?

Uh--professor of Advanced Smegmatics?

Rank?

Uh--chaplain?

That's what we're looking for. Welcome to Gitmo, chaplain.

I don't understand. Am I being detained, or--hired?

Neither, chaplain. You're being recruited.

Recruited to--what, the U.S. military? I'm a foreign national.

We're aware of that, chaplain.

So if this is a recruitment, I'm free to refuse?

Of course.

And if I refuse, I'm free to go?

Absolutely.

Then I'll go.

Be my guest. There's the door.

But there's--nothing out there.

Oh, I think you'll find it isn't exactly "nothing." Our staff philosophers like to call it Kant's Ding-an-sich. Our staff shrinks prefer to call it Lacan's Real. And it's plenty of both.

Both?

Dingy and real.

But if I stepped out into it, I'd be--

Instantly subsumed. Yes, chaplain.

I see.

Sign here?

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 1:11 PM

Sanctiblogger's heart sinks.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 11:28 AM

But then Sanctiblogger has one of his famous ideas.

How famous are his ideas?

His ideas are so famous, four major motion picture studios once had a bidding war for the rights to the fourteenth idea he thought up in a given month.

His ideas are so famous, the Pope once issued a Papal Bull banning them and excommunicating anyone who participated in a bidding war for the rights to them.

His ideas are so famous, at least three gods during the recent deity election begged him to manage their campaigns, promising him wealth, a long healthy life, and longer-lasting erections in return.

His new idea: sanctiblog his way off the heaven bus. Grab some screen shots and photoshop them into the reality he desires, namely, being led off the bus at the Outposts of Freedom with the attractive young women in sports bras, or the Islands of Tyranny, or wherever the hell they are getting off, and not being left on the bus alone and at the mercy of Alberto Torture Memo Gonzales, who is just as likely to drive him to the Island of Detention at Guantanamo Bay and call it Outpost of Tyranny #6.

So he starts whistling. He straightens his back. He plasters a big dumb goofy grin on his wrecked visage. And he grabs the screen shot. Dumb-de-dumb. And he opens Photoshop. Doo-de-doo. And he organizes the attractive young women in sports bras by the front door and makes them all smile welcomingly at him, Dr. Spiriti Sanctiblogger. And then he desaturates Alberto Gonzales, and--



Damn. Why--why does Gonzales's face refuse to desaturate? And why, when he tries to upload the image to his sanctiblog, does he keep getting the same error message?

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 8:19 AM