Harm and Pain

I know I’m really late commenting on this one, so mea culpa (Latin for “my bad”). Without looking at a clock, how can I tell? Well when I first wrote that sentence, it was several weeks past when I should’ve really posted something, if indeed I was hell-bent on posting something. So now it’s much worse. Not infinitely, but in this blog-a-minute world where yesterday’s topic is as interesting as old socks, it’s bad. But I spent enough time on the rest of the post that I felt committed to writing it, so here we are. Nobody’s really happy with it, but in a newfound zest to embrace the mediocre, I feel I have no other choice. Here we shall remain.

So getting to where I really started this post, many weeks ago. -> If this were a McSweeney’s submission, I’d probably have entitled this something along the lines of:

Harm and Pain: In which Iran promises to alternatively use spells from “Final Fantasy” against the US in the event of an attack, or attempts to turn the mirror on the US in using euphemistic 21^st-century marketing phraseology in posturing for war. I report, I decide!

The gist being from this pronouncement of a few weeks ago, Iran has promised “harm and pain” to the US in event of an attack on Iran. As a marketing catchphrase, UM would have to say that “harm and pain” is no “shock and awe.” Of course, when it comes down to it, was “shock and awe” that shocking and/or awesome? I mean, were it so shockingly awesome, would it not have ended the war almost instantaneously? Put aside for a second the fact that ‘the war’ part of the continuing war (sorry, I mean situation, or something similar, and certainly wasn’t intending one of your partisan terms of quagmire, boondoggle, etc. Or do I mean boondoggle? If it’s not impossible to tell, then I haven’t been doing my job! A precise level of confusion regarding my actual opinion on things is the actual intent. If I convince myself that I’m not sure what I’m intending, that then magically applies to everyone else then. So either I’m engaging in so much self-deluding mumbo-jumbo, or more likely, I have an opinion, but am attempting to appear neutral so as not to antagonize others, with the added benefit of appearing to be thoughtfully and mysteriously enigmatic… I like my odds here.)

Anyway, in UM’s opinion the real problem with making war in these days of limitless entertainment choice, incessant advertising, and 99¢ Value Menus, is that to get around the clutter or the noise (as Mr. Bush might put it) and communicate to the people, modern war planners have to use the same techniques as marketers promoting the next Hollywood blockbuster or energy drink. Unfortunately for warmongers as for their latte-drinking godless liberal counterparts in Hollywood, using nomenclature such as ‘Shock and Awe’ turns out to be as effective as telling us that ‘Stealth’ delivers some $8-worthy thrills and chills. Bummer.

So what’s a trigger-happy pseudo-messianic somewhat-belligerent non-newspaper reading President to do? (actually, in a press conference a few days ago the President admitted to reading the papers and said that they contained “completely speculative” information – in my opinion that’s a bit slanderous, I’d never call Marmaduke ‘speculative’) On an unrelated note, where should the question mark in the previous sentence have gone; it doesn’t feel right, but I’m lazy. Haters be on the look-out though; I acknowledged the shortcoming, thereby preemptively deflecting any criticism!

The answer is, UM has no idea on what should be done, either on the issue of invading Iran (ok I have an idea there – don’t do it), or in countering the noise of modern consumer culture and overcoming it to deliver Americans the war/movie/caffeinated drink that they deserve, dammit. But, to continue the obscure role-playing game references, UM will now predict that Iran will next offer us some fine leather jackets in a highly complicated face-saving maneouver, the ramifications of which will remain unknown well into the future, ‘natch.