Oh, yes. In addition to the big, scary presidential elections in Nicaragua - as former US President Ronald Reagan pointed out, just a two-day drive from the USA - it looks like Sunday will also see a verdict in former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's barely publicized trial for the (alleged) 1982 murder of 148 people in the village of Dujail. Sure, that seems like a sort of bizarre thing to try the guy for, but perhaps the accomplices to Saddam's other (alleged) war crimes are hoping to avoid any legal entanglements in the World Court.

And, while I just can't even begin guess whether he'll be found guilty or not, given the fair and impartial trial by a jury of his peers, I will go out on a limb and predict that George Clooney will play the dapper dictator in the movie, tentatively entitled He's A Bad Man and Tried to Kill My Daddy. Although at our house we'll all be rooting for Sacha Baron Cohen to get the part. What do you think?



Uncle Saddam wants YOU to join the insurgency!



Just imagine what Clooney could do with the "I am still the Iraqi head of state!" speech...



But only Cohen could nail the part where US troops find Saddam all holed up, don't you think? And that, of course, would make casting a cinch for the dream roll of George W. Bush:



"Clearing mesquite in my Ronald Reagan outfit makes me feel like a real Cold Warrior," says Will "W" Farrell.

Which brings us back to the Cold War, and former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. With the 1980s Marxist poster boy back on the ballot and ahead in the polls in the upcoming Sunday elections, it looks like our old "Enemy of the Month" could be conveniently hanged out to dry, and replaced with a new [please choose one of the following: Communist, Terrorist, Warlord, Dictator, Fascist, Threat to the American Homeland] on the same day! Oceana has always been at war with Eurasia.


Hugo Chávez, Simón Bolívar and li'l Danny, working toward a pan-Latin American union capable of standing up to (alleged) imperialist US hegemony.

And if he wins, I'm willing to bet anyone who actually bothers to read my slog (hi mom!) ten Nicaraguan cordobas that the CIA will find incontrovertible evidence that Ortega has also been working with Al-Qaeda, Kim Jong-Il II, Michael Moore and/or Nancy Pelosi in some psychotic plot against democracy, puppies and reality television. Hasta la victoria siempre, baby.

Ortega's apparent popularity is also generating more US press than any event since the guy left office in 1990 about our hemisphere's second-poorest nation, after Haiti. (Time magazine's election article lists Nicaragua as the Americas' third-poorest country, also after Honduras; although they sided with the USA during the 1980s' proxy "Cold" War hot wars, all they got was the lousy second-hand T-shirt you donated to the Salvation Army last year, plus a ridiculously huge military budget that still helps keep Lockheed Martin and Halliburton execs in economansion comfort.)

Which sort of pisses me off; I mean, I hope he loses the election, but Ortega can't possibly do any worse than Nicaragua's morbidly obese ex-president Arnoldo Alemán, who stole at least US$2 million from his destitute constituency before opting to not serve the resulting prison sentence because - no joke - he hurt his finger.

Oh wait, Arnoldo was a champion of capitalism and free markets, a dedicated player for Team USA. Never mind.

Sunday is also, perhaps unsurprisingly, a full moon, when we all go a little bit crazy. According to artcharts.com:

"...the Full Moon works to integrate and harmonize the contradictions in ourselves and others. This opening of increased awareness traditionally makes the Full Moon a beneficial time for meditation on personal and worldwide issues. There's literally an electrical energy build-up before a Full Moon and a release just after the peak. At the Full Moon...we reap what we've sown."

 

What did you think of this article?

Liked
Disliked
No Opinion