We were, in fact, talking about the economy, in addition to the wars, the environment and the overall state of the union - all of which, we agree, had been criminally mismanaged by George W. Bush and his consiglieres.
I'm glad we agree on such basic issues. I can't imagine sharing bathroom space, dinner dishes and the living room sofa with someone whose political views are as dissimilar as, say, those of Mary Matalin and James Carville. I recall when this horrifying two-headed gargoyle first made news, back in the early 90s. They were celebrated for their purported all-consuming love that overcame any differences they might have had regarding such trivialities as capital punishment, abortion, lending a hand to those in need and killing brown people for the sake of inexpensive gasoline. In fact, there were even a movie and a TV program based on their laugh-a-minute media personae.
So, despite the two of us singing to each other's choir, The Loved One seemed tense, almost bubbling over with ire.
"Didja hear that report on NPR this week?" she asked.
"No, which?"
"The one about the American woman in Iraq."
"Tell me all."
The Loved One raised herself up on her elbows. "It makes me so mad, I could..., I could...," she fumed. She paused for a moment to find the right words.
"Go on," I said.
"Well, she worked for Halliburton."
"Yeah, Dick Cheney's old outfit."
"The things I could do to Dick Cheney...," she spluttered.
"Uh huh."
"She went outside the barracks for a drink with four other Halliburton people, all men. One of them handed her a beer. She took a few sips and she was unconscious, just like that."
"They roofied her?"
"Yeah. Then they raped her, front and back. They manhandled her breasts so badly that they're deformed now. She woke up and one of the guys was still there, sleeping. She tried to get them prosecuted but guess what - private contractors in Iraq can't be prosecuted for crimes they commit there.
"It makes me so mad! She's there trying to protect the people of Iraq but who protects her - from her own people?"
"My god."
"Here's what I want to do," The Loved One said through narrowed eyes. "I'd like to sneak into Dick Cheney's house in disguise and torture him. You know how he doesn't think torture is all that bad, right? Only I'd do to him what those guys did to that woman and I'd make sure he was awake for it all. I'd want him to feel it all!"
Normally, The Loved One is the picture of compassion and sensitivity (except when we argue; but, I admit, I can enrage even a lamb at times.) For this brief moment, though, she was the emotional sibling of my next door neighbor Captain Billy, who regularly rages about Mexicans, Democrats, Arabs and other miscreants who, in his view, ought to be slaughtered.
The whole world seems to be mad. Kim Jong Il is waving his primitive little nukes around like a four-year-old displaying his penis. The Taliban is blowing up innocents in Pakistan. The Jews and the Palestinians, natch, are still at it. al Qaeda's probably cooking up some kind of perverse birthday cake for us at this very minute. And pasty, jowly, bilious white men like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly are shrieking at us every day on radio and TV, whipping the anencephalic dopes of this nation (of whom there are a scary many) into action.
You think the recent killings at a Marine recruitment center, a doctor's church in Omaha and the National Holocaust Museum are flukes? I'm afraid they're trumpet blasts for opposing cavalries. I'm afraid, period. When I say the whole world seems to be mad, I mean both angry and insane.
The world occasionally has a nervous breakdown. We may be headed for the padded room right now. And when my normally placid mate suddenly has a taste for blood, I wonder if the world has come unhinged already.
