Bits To Be Performed in New York



You know, it's 2004 and I still don't have my jet pack.

On that note, my new short play Bits has been accepted into the 00:10 Festival in New York. Bits is a short comedy about a married couple who are trying to decide how they're going to travel to their best friends' wedding. I don't want to give away any more, but of course there's more to it than that -- it is a Patrick Brennan play, after all.

I'm very pleased to be part of a lineup of only five plays to be performed at this inagural event sponsored by PROACTIVE. It should be a fun show!

the PROfessional ACTors' collectIVE
and the Faux-Real Theatre Company
present

00:10 – A series of unpublished ten-minute plays
Inaugural performance
Monday, June 28 & Tuesday, June 29, 2004, 7:30 PM
The Sande Shurin Studio Theatre
311 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
Reservations: 212 568 4043

Bits by Patrick M Brennan
Dating Resume by Elle McComsey
Demon Lover by Daryl Lathon
Double-Whammy by Liz Amberly
Two by Jeffery B. Teitler

Christian Exodus

I came across Christian Exodus a few days ago, by way of the Daily Kos. Christian Exodus wants to gather 50,000 Christian "conservatives" in one of the states as a precursor to secession. The choice states? No surprises here: they want to take one of Alabama, Mississippi or South Carolina. (I guess Georgia's too progressive for them.)

Why do they want to do this? To "protect children from homosexual predators and the abortionist’s knife", naturally; to avoid living in a country where "Preaching Christianity will soon be outlawed as 'hate speech'"; and because "Redemption of all 50 American States and their general government is totally impossible."

I wasn't aware that preaching Christianity was soon to be declared illegal... I think I would have heard of that. I certainly didn't know that homosexual predators and abortionists with knives were stalking Christian children, but it's a vivid image, isn't it? Well, I suppose if you're already trained to believe any nonsense on command, you'll believe that there is a national epidemic of roving gangs of limp-wristed gynecologists on the streets, sharpening their scalpels and licking their lips in anticipation of what they're going to do to your children.

It's easy to dismiss Christian Exodus as a bunch of loopy cranks with an impossible dream. Which they are. Nevertheless, their motivation bears a few moments of thought. Here we are, in 2004, under a government utterly dominated by the right wing of the Republican Party, which has pretty much the exclusive backing of the Christian religious right. Together, they have accomplished a great deal of their agenda, and seem poised to achieve still more of it. But that's not enough! There's actually been some push-back from people who disagree with them! They cannot tolerate any dissent! They must not merely control the government -- they must dominate. Those who disagree with them must have no political power. It seems to me that the "Christian Exodus" people wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than a rigid Christian Theocracy, and that's what they aim to establish in one of the aforementioned states.

(By the way, when they say "Christian", I rather doubt that includes Catholics. My guess: it's hard-line Evangelical Protestants only, thank you very much -- Baptists only, maybe they'll tolerate Methodists. Nobody else need apply.)

When and if they ever succeed in establishing a "Christian nation" in one or more of these states (dream on), I wonder how long they will take to understand why the principle of the Separation of Church and State is so important. The Founders of the United States understood that the Establishment Clause protected everyone's freedom of conscience. The organizers of Christian Exodus are unsatisfied with the democratically expressed will of millions of peoples' conscience, and therefore their plan is to create a state where there is no such freedom. They wouldn't put it that way, but once you've thought it through, that's what it boils down to.

The Ten Mistakes

Anyone who cares about the situation we now find ourselves in should read Retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni's analysis of The Ten Mistakes We Made in Iraq. (Here's Another version that doesn't require registration.) This excellent analysis is a dispassioned view from the man who ran US Central Command from 1997 to 2000, and therefore I think he knows what he's talking about.

Maybe if we understood how we got ourselves into this mess, we can start the process of getting ourselves out of it. I keep telling myself that; I'm not convinced yet.

"Abu G-guh-guh-grape"

I listened to Bush's speech last night on the radio. I didn't watch it on TV, and I didn't see any photos of him until this morning. (man, Cheney's been knocking him around a bit lately, hasn't he?) I only tuned in at all because they said he was going to outline a new strategy for Iraq. I guess I knew better, but I really was hoping that he would actually, you know, outline a new strategy. God knows we could use one, and I thought maybe, maybe they realize just how deep in the shit we really are here.

No such luck. The "speech" was just more of the same bullshit; the "new strategy" turns out to be -- surprise! -- the same old strategy. "Blah, blah, blah, 9/11. Blah, blah, blah, terrorists. Blah, blah, blah, the dictator. Blah, blah, blah, Abu ... abu guh ... abu guh-guh-grape" -- what?

It was very telling, the way he mangled the pronunciation of the infamous prison "Abu Ghraib". The first time he ran across it, he completely messed up, saying something like "Abu Guh-Gurum". He seemed utterly perplexed by the words -- as though he'd never seen them before. He didn't botch the name quite so badly the second time, but he still botched it -- and again, the third time!

OK, so maybe he hasn't paid much attention to the unfolding scandal at Abu Ghraib, and beyond. (Hey, Don Rumsfeld's doing a "superb" job!) Doesn't he read his own speeches? He sounded to me like nothing so much as a high school freshman trying to bluff his way through a book report when he hadn't even bothered to do the reading.

I'm honestly beginning to wonder about whether this guy has any clue at all about what's going on.

Some Possible Bush Campaign Slogans

BUSH: Because four years of lies just isn't enough.
BUSH: War and Recession!
BUSH: Find out which other wars we've already decided to have!
BUSH: Admit it: you didn't like your job anyway.
BUSH: Absolutely No Lies About Blowjobs.
BUSH: Because You're Still Not Scared Enough.
BUSH: Because You've Still Got Some Money.
BUSH: My Friends Want More of What You've Got.
BUSH: More wars - More prisons - Fewer jobs - Just like Dad.
BUSH: More perks for us - Fewer jobs for you.
BUSH: Saddam is out of a job, and so are you.
BUSH: Waging War Abroad For Us - Waging War At Home Against You.

US Federal Deficit by Party

This page only goes to prove how deeply irresponsible the Democrats are. I mean, don't they know that the country will never go bankrupt if we keep paying down our debts????

US Federal Deficit by Party

The Playwright's Forum

The Playwright's Forum is a very interesting site which caught my eye today; they appear to be an organization not unlike our own Playwrights' Platform, serving the Washington D.C. area.

The Year of Private Space Flight

The BBC is reporting that the X-Prize will be won this year; in fact, an X-Prize organizer says it will be won within five months from now, probably by Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne.

This is really good news, but don't go reserving your ticket to orbit just yet. It's only the first step. The X-Prize is only for getting a 3-person vehicle up to 100 km altitude. Getting a vehicle up to 100 km altitude is definitely hard, but the next part is even harder. That's the part about reaching orbital velocity (roughly 27,000 km/hr), and then being able to shed that velocity and come back safely to Earth. When one or more private companies are able to do that, and I'm sure they will sooner or later, it'll truly be the beginning of a new era in space flight.

They're Only Having A Good Time

Wow... well, at least we know what Rush Limbaugh considers to be a good time. I bet the parties at his place are a blast.

The right-wing pundit brigade seems to be settling on the "it's no worse than frat hazing" meme, but I bet it doesn't get much traction. It's also a useful time for the shoe-on-the-other-foot test. What do you suppose Rush et al. would be saying if this was Bill Clinton's war? They'd be screaming bloody murder, that's what.

And by the way, isn't it great that George W. Bush has stood firm on keeping the sexual perverts out of the military?

"The America I Know"

George W. Bush has said that the abuse and torture committed at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq weren't part of the "America I know".

Well, obviously.

In the America that George W. Bush knows, the reports of abuse are never made public in the first place. In George W. Bush's America, the reports sit unread on his desk and his subordinates', months after the abuses -- if the investigation happens at all.

In the America that George W. Bush knows, the imbecile rent-a-scum that actually commits the abuse doesn't snap incriminating photos that can shatter plausible deniability; and if they do, the photos mysteriously disappear, along with all other evidence, long before they have a chance of being exposed in the media.

In the America that George W. Bush knows, all of the inconvenient witnesses disappear -- not just some of them.

In the America that George W. Bush knows, the media acquiesce meekly when bullied to keep a lid on the story.

In the America that George W. Bush knows, abuse, torture and murder aren't considered a problem until it becomes public knowledge, when deniability is lost, at which point it is dealt with purely as a public relations problem. In the America that George W. Bush knows, lower-level flunkies take the fall, and there is never any accountability for the higher-ups who tolerated -- and probably ordered -- the abuses in the first place.

Oh, wait -- I guess this is the America that George W. Bush knows, after all.