Bush Issues Quarantines for SARS, Celebrity Activists

s another step forward in the country's re-constitutionalizing, the president decreed that it was acceptable for health officials to quarantine anyone suspected of having the SARS flu, an epidemic which has killed more than 120 people worldwide. The largest number of victims have so far been in Hong Kong, a nation renowned for people who do their own stunts.

When questioned if the administration had the power to approve such orders, large masked men detained the reporter violently and he was dragged screaming into a back room of the West Wing. Remaining correspondents looked away and tried not to make eye contact.

SARS, which may or may not stand for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, is reaching epidemic proportions in some areas of the world. Already international flights have brought suspected SARS carriers to the United States and allowed the spread of the disease across the Atlantic and Pacific and other oceans.

Also reaching epidemic proportions, according to the Bush administration: Mouthy celebrities.

A week after his April 4 SARS quarantine executive order, Bush issued another order that allowed for temporary restraint of celebrities showing dissent on the subject of the Iraq war. Federal agents moved quickly to tranquilize Michael Moore in his New York home and seize any possible sardonic footage accrued for a future documentary.

Though no other celebrities have been selected for quarantine as of yet, many are under strict warning to reduce symptoms of celebrity activism or face forced isolation. Talk show appearances and awards shows will be monitored especially close for signs of infective dissent.

Among the most closely watched celebrities are notorious leftist opposition and those who have recent displayed insurgent opinions prior to the start of the war. Martin Sheen will still appear on NBC's drama The West Wing, but all other appearances are subject to administration approval. Those in fear of the contagious verbosity of Sheen or other actors can have their televisions adapted with special chips that sense liberal claptrap and automatically switch the channel to Fox News.

Other precautions have been taken as well. An anniversary showing of Bull Durham at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown was called off when former Reagan aid and Hall of Fame president Peretsky worried about the communicable ideas of film stars Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. Also not recommended for viewing is The Banger Sisters, but the administration affirms it is for entirely different reasons.

The most surprising addition to the list of possibly infected celebrities in the past month was Texas' own the Dixie Chicks, but an investigation has begun to root out the cause of the band's newfound radicalism. Early indications suggest that the Dixie Chicks played a venue after the Beastie Boys within the past six months and singer Natalie Manes may have had close contact with a microphone used by Ad-Rock.

The administration assures the public that SARS and activist quarantines are not expected to last longer than a few months, but then asks what we would do about it even if they were.

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it's overtones, there's some kind of tone problem, of that much I'm sure. Maybe I wouldn't be right in referring to it as an "article" when it's more of a "ranting letter," but it's very chilling to realize.

The writer of this letter, Earl Chico of "Behind the Walgreens" (as the letter signed), suggests that CDs are nothing more than tiny records. I hadn't thought much of it before, but once this was brought to my attention I rifled through Ramrod Hurley's CD collection and studied each Enya and John Tesh offering closely. By God, Chico's right! They are tiny, circular, there's a hole through the middle, they're flat, and they're played through an expensive piece of stereo machinery you can purchase for high mark-up. I can't tell you how surprising and unsettling this has been to me.

I have never enjoyed recorded music, hence the live band I keep on staff at the commune offices to play my favorite tunes whenever I beckon. Some complain they interfere with the work of the staff, but when Nacutchacokov wants to pay all the bills maybe I'll start taking his big fat advice, until then I run things my way. But I stray like a wife longing for sexual satisfaction from the topic.

CDs and records are basically interchangeable—what does this mean to you? If you're like other Americans and have spent countless dinero replacing your LP collection with squat cassette tapes, then replacing those with CDs, you've been screwed. Screwed hard! "Ouch, quit screwing me!" I say to the recording industry. Not me, of course, given my distaste for recorded music I've mentioned, but you, they're screwing you. Still doing it.

The fact is "digital" technology is no more real than the time machine. Sure, it's a nice fantasy we've come up with, but until scientists conquer the quantum field theorem we're not going to have real digital technology. I could explain that further but I'm afraid it would take up several thousand columns and I don't plan on living that long. Suffice to say all we're using now is the height of analog technology.

From my research into this, which has included asking several session bass players and drum programmers, CD making merely involves recording vinyl LPs at full size and then shrinking them to CD size. The most expense involved, compared to the making of an LP, is not the shrink ray technology, which is fairly easy and inexpensive, but in painting the LPs with silver reflective paint.

Why all the trouble? It takes no elaborate imagination to explain that, readers. Money, pure, green and sexy. Why would anybody buy a 30-year-old Dylan record they kept in pristine condition if the technology never changed? With all this talk of "digital technology" and "re-mastering" and such they can sell you a copy of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band six or seven times over. Why "CD" itself stands not for "compact disc," it's all an insider joke. "Collectin' Dinero," readers, that's the truth.

It's not over yet. It'll never be over. The next logical step is selling you "Super CDs," which will again just be analog LPs in shrunken CD form they've enlarged to a giant size with Expando Ray technology, which is what they're working on now. Shrinking things is easy—restoring them to full size, aye, there's the rub, to quote Shakespeare, or Lil Duncan.

So while America continues its love affair with throwing their money down the toilet on recorded music, I clap my hands and the commune office band plays "Purple Rain" while I sit back, laugh, and point my proverbial finger. Which is basically my regular finger. Ha.

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No one is more surprised than Rok Finger at the results of his latest physical. I will spare you the details I usually render in graphic description, inviting several letters of complaint to my mailbox, and instead inform you of the doctor's shocking surprise.

"Rok, you're a dancing machine." Those are the words he said, I kid you not.

By this he meant my physique is perfectly constructed for dancing the night away. The twist in particular would be no problem for someone with my spinal make-up. It appears my vertebrae are especially springy and soft, which explains why after starting my early twenties at a good five foot two I've shrunk so badly over the years to now stand at three foot nine. Though I'm not complaining, it's a small price to pay for perfectly filling out a pair of boogie shoes.

True, my skill in dancing is hardly noteworthy. In fact, my previous efforts to dance have resulted in being strapped down by paramedics with a wallet placed under my tongue. But such a small obstacle shouldn't stand in the way of my destined greatness on the dance floor. You heard what the doctor said—a machine, he said. Dancing. Machine. You're. A. Rok.

Your friend Rok Finger is no stranger to scaling large obstacles, people. And this Everest of an obstacle will be conquered. I've already begun.

The first step, I've calculated, is to increase my rhythm, or as a the hip will define it, acceptance of the beat. After several further explanations and fruitless examination of Webster's Dictionary and P-Funk's Dancetionary, I decided the best course of action was to start nodding my head to a whack beat. It was difficult, I had to practice at home before I could take it out into a club or anything, but I think I've become an expert at beat technology.

It is a small step (dance step, that is) but it will suffice to start me in my career of dancing excellence. I have begun to assemble a dancing wardrobe. Wardrobe? More appropriately called my "gear," the dancing soldier's camouflage. I built it like a house from the bottom up, starting with a stylish pair of blue suede shoes. Yes, just like the Elvis anthem of a few years back. The dresser at the store, Fancy, said my color was emerald, like money, another word she used to describe me, and therefore outfitted me in a suave glittery emerald jumpsuit with a purple streak of vinyl up the side. She said when I "move" (street code for dancing) I look like a green and purple tornado. That was all the salesmanship I needed!

Then I hit the clubs. And I rock hard, let me tell you. Just the little bit of expertise I picked up from bobbing my head, no doubt buoyed by the new confidence found in my dancing wardrobe, I've become a very intimidating figure on the dance floor. Most of the time other dancers are too self-conscious to join the floor while I'm on it. But when a brave few manage to two-step up to me, we have a gay old time. Sometimes extremely gay. The ladies love me, we dance like tornadoes and carry on loudly laughing away. Well, they're laughing, I'm usually too busy concentrating on my steps.

What more can I say? This machine is in high gear. Not the gear you wear, but the gear like a car. Hence the machine metaphor. I'll bring you more news as I make dancing news on the club scene here and there. In the meantime, I must go get the rubber soles of my blue suede shoes patched.

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