Poll Shows Americans Willing to Relinquish Rights

recent poll has shown that, in the wake of the September 11 flight attendant's brunch gone bad, a vast majority of Americans would be willing to give up many of their Constitutional rights for a guarantee of some measure of safety and security and the chance to "sleep one full night without worrying about some goat-herder's son with bad breath slamming a loaded passenger jet into my apartment building," as one anonymous respondent put it.

Apparently, many citizens feel that a strong police state and the complete suspension of the Bill of Rights is the only way to keep terrorist activity from destroying our precious way of life. Among the rights that people polled would willingly give up are the right to privacy in their homes and persons, the right to avoid wiretaps and other electronic eavesdropping, and the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. There was initially some debate on the issue of whether Americans would give up the right to "supersize" their fast-food meals, but that has been tabled at the present time.

Said respondent Connie Bologna, who identified herself as a professional escort for generous gentlemen, "I'd be happy to have about five or six strapping young law enforcement officers handcuff me spread-eagle to an iron cot and give me a full body-cavity search with their nightsticks or batons or billy clubs or whatever you call them. Absolutely. If it helps stop these terroristical attacks, I'm all for it. Where do I sign up?"

Another poll respondent, diva Ladyboy Smacky, commented, "You mean let the police get their hands all up in my stuff? Honey, that happens anyway. But if it means saving our country, well, just let me get my lube first. And fix my makeup, mm-hmm."

Added Bologna, "Oh, yeah, uh huh, honey, I heard the hell out of that!"

The poll was conducted at the Motherlode Bar on Post Street in San Francisco, and has a five percent margin for error, considering that tired queen Charlene and her boyfriend Ray participated, and everyone knows they lie about everything and never answer a question seriously. When it was suggested that the patrons of the Lush Lounge across the street also be polled, Ms. Smacky sniffed, "Who cares what those bitches think? Honey, I'd have to go find a rat just to give a rat's ass."

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The first tornado, or "dizzy wind," was reported in ancient Sumer in 4914 B.C.. The Sumerian king returned home from an afternoon pillage one day to find his castle in total disarray, with royal garments strewn everywhere and the court musicians stuck up in a tree. He called upon the court scientists, who declared it the work of an ungodly natural phenomena caused by God's drunken uncle Blitzen. Later it was discovered that the king's ex-wife had been over that day and had caused the whole thing as usual, so the king had the court scientists tarred, feathered and cooked in a terrible big pot pie. And while he was at it he had the royal ex-wife beheaded again, since it apparently didn't take the first time.

When the Renaissance came along and slept on the world's couch longer than anyone would have liked, all sorts of half-assed thinkers came out of the woodwork to declare that they had the answers to all of nature's mysteries, like why sticks are pointy and why a dropped donut always falls in poop. For a while it was funny, but before too long people were longing for the Dark Ages again, when you could be ostracized, killed and buggered (in that order) for talking about anything other than how nice the weather was.

But unfortunately for fans of involuntary necrophilia, the Renaissance eventually led to the modern age, with its own host of superstitions and scientific old wives' tales. Modern scientists explained that twisters were actually caused when high-powered attorneys ran into the front of low-pressure salesmen, resulting in a fun party game with a spinner. People never really believed that, but the spinner was so much fun that few saw fit to question the philosophy behind it.

To this day, a goodly proportion of the superstitious masses still believe in the tornado, this mythical "wind beast" that can pick up an entire trailer park at once and deposit it in a better part of town with no warning, even if they're just about to say who gets to marry the millionaire. Wild-eyed true believers tell fantastic tales of tornadoes that can blow a piece of straw through an oak tree or even drag a needle through Tipper Gore's ass.

Hollywood has done much to play into the public's ignorant fears, creating computer-generated tornadoes so real you'd swear they really were the bane of hayseeds from Kansas to Oklahoma. The Helen Hunt drama Twister won many a convert to the cult of the tornado, even though the film's credits spell out exactly who was responsible for the digital sleight-of-hand in large font. Many remember seeing the foam-rubber tornado in 1939's The Wizard of Oz as a child and have simply always assumed they were real. Others should know better, but there is little hope in arguing with someone who has a deep-seated need to believe in tornadoes.

Sadder still are the so-called tornado victims, who grab for headlines with vivid tales of the twister that took their truck, their house and their hometown. A sparse few have any kind of hard evidence, beyond some twisted wreckage and a town-shaped hole in the ground. Tornado hoaxes such as these have proliferated in recent years, as a deep need for contact with the supernatural has pushed many desperate people to the edge. A hilarious few claim to have been "taken" by the twister, up into its spinning winds, presumably to a magical land of merry-go-rounds, spinning tops and ice skaters twirling around perpetually like Lazy Susans.

Eventually there will come an enlightened age when we are free from such inane superstitions, but unfortunately it's not likely to happen until our alien creators come back and anal probe us into being smart.

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Suffice to say, after last year's catastrophe, I will no longer be dressing up like Saddam Hussein. Also, the thrill is gone. Since his capture, I have realized he is a poor man's Hitler, and not just because he no longer has any money. His system of genocide against his own people didn't appear to be race-based, although they did all happen to be Iraqi. Well, enough of my political soapbox. Let's just say Saddam isn't scary anymore, and I don't want to be apprehended by a wayward team of National Guard soldiers, so I'm packing up the wax mustache and Iraqi military uniform.

Which leaves me with a very short amount of time, good people, to come up with the perfect Halloween costume before the commune's bi-annual Halloween party. Now I love a challenge as much as the next person, but considering I'm near flat-busted since I invested all that money in the World Series (Yankees all the way this year!), this is one challenge I'm not up for.

The children's Halloween costumes at my local Wal-Mart fit reasonably well, although they clearly weren't planning on children having shoulders as broad as mine. But still, the fit I can manage. But who are these damned characters they expect me to dress up as? I am familiar with Snoopy dog, but not Snoop Dogg. What the hell is a Shrek? Where are the Hogan's Heroes costumes I had hoped for? Does no one else want to dress up as President Ulysses S. Grant? I know who Martha Stewart is, but I'm not dressing up as a girl. Not for free.

That leaves me no other choice than the old reliable home-made costume. I am no slouch when it comes to making creative things out of whatever's left lying around the house. One year, I wore my ex-wife Arvelyn around my shoulders and went as some sort of bizarre alien bourgeois widow, with a human stole. True, it wasn't all that impressive to look at, and I did supreme damage to my back and lost a good half a foot in height, and I had to spend all night explaining the elaborate premise of my costume, but… no, it was a bad idea. No defense there.

I have before, on short notice, annexed Camembert's wheelchair and gone as Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a child, but this year Camembert's bruiser Elvis girlfriend is watching for me to make my move. I'm better off not trying anything. By the way, Camembert is going as a handicapped robot and Girl Elvis will be wearing her usual Halloween costume, Buddy Holly.

I'm left with very little, and no imagination, to pull this one out of the fire, friends. Even my calls to Arvelyn have gone unanswered. If only I had a woman who would let me wear her around her neck, I would have something!

Perhaps nude body painting is the answer… then again, my mother might have been right when she told me nude body painting was not the answer to everything.

A quick rummaging of my house has revealed next to nothing to use for a costume, but it is all I've got. I'm tempted to stick a spatula between the crack of my buttocks and go as a fried egg. But the last thing I need is another costume with a lengthy explanation.

So here are my choices: I can put on a diaper and go as a giant baby; I can put on the diaper and go as a small geriatric man; or I can put on the diaper and go as a man totally out of his mind. Which is your favorite?

Hmm. No time to do that phone poll I had hoped for. Maybe I'll just go with the diaper on and let people guess what I am. Winner receives… I don't know. A spatula.

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