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JERRY FALWELL’S FIRST DAY IN HEAVEN: a Memoir

So this is my choice. I can stay in Heaven as a bath house attendant or I can go to…”

JERRY FALWELL’S FIRST DAY IN HELL

“Hello. New York Times customer service. This is Jerry.”

Daimler-Benz, those delightful volk who added the blitz to krieg, is retreating from Detroitgrad.  Reflecting its more moderate approach to employee management, the German corporation will not be executing the American workers.  The employees probably won’t be that lucky. 

They are now in the claws of Cerberus, a private investment company named for the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades.  That is not the most encouraging image.   You can imagine how Cerberus will streamline the company.  Wages will be cut, but employees will be allowed to live in unsold cars.  (And since everyone is now living at the plant, no one will mind working a few hours on Saturday and Sunday.)  Sanitation needs will be accommodated by Lake Erie.  The employees will be provided a new health care plan, consisting of Christian Science literature.

Now, who would you imagine to be the most incompetent, least credible person to head Cerberus?  Alberto Gonzales is currently busy–although there is always a seat for him on the Board of Directors.  No, it is John W. Snow who, as the Secretary of the Treasury, emphasized the toad in toady. 

He replaced Paul O’Neill, who possessed an inconvenient integrity and refused to play the demented cheerleader for Bush economics.  Snow had no such scruples.  He would never have passed a lie detector but he would have worn it out.  Snow could deny evidence, invert truth or concoct the most optimistic distortion of a disaster.  What deficits?  What scandals? 

So, under his inspired leadership, Cerberus will improve their cars’ gasoline mileage by putting the gas tank where the bumper used to be.  That certainly would discourage speeding.

How should we celebrate the anniversary of Edward Jenner’s introduction of vaccinating against small pox?  A cake covered with buttercream pustules?  (You know me: any excuse for frosting.)   

It is a tribute to English tolerance that Edward Jenner was merely vilified for his dangerous notion about vaccination…and not hanged or exiled to Australia.  The English were not just intimidated by medical innovation; they had developed a sentimental attachment to small pox.  The disease had proved extremely helpful in clearing North America of its natives.  (The Spanish were just as grateful for the same reason.)

However, the French–ever the contrary–did not seem to like small pox.  Of course, they would prefer the great pox–and even earned the honor of having syphilis renamed the French Disease.  And small pox did not behave itself in France. 

It is the reason that Louis XIV was succeeded by his great-grandson.  So, what happened to Louis XIV’s dauphin and grand-dauphin? In 1711-1712, there was an outbreak of smallpox at Versailles. The mortality among the Bourbons would have made a Jacobin jealous. The future Louis XV was the third son of the Duc of Burgundy. By the time the epidemic had ended, he had lost both his parents, his two older brothers and his grandfather. The two-year-old had been fifth in line to the throne; he now was the heir.

Indeed his survival was due to the diligence of his nurse; she quarantined herself and the child–isolating themselves from any other contact. But for her zeal, the succession might have passed to the Orleanist branch of the royal family; and who would want intelligent, progressive kings of France?

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton hadn’t written that for a Mother’s Day card, but it could have been appropriate. Royalty does not tend to make good parents. You could ask Prince Charles…or his sons, and they are dysfunctional at a time when they are only pampered mannekins. Imagine what they would be perpetrating on each other if real power were at stake. (Prince Philip found impaled on polo mallet…. Prince Charles belatedly discovers that many poisons are organic vegetables.)

But on this day, we should pay special tribute to some of the worst mothers in royal history:

Being the sister of Caligula, Agrippina the Younger (A.D. 15-59) was brought up thinking that incest was a form of positive reinforcement. Unfortunately, her son Nero really did not need any further encouragement. Indeed, dating Mom may have spoiled him where other women were concerned. He had one wife suffocated and personally kicked to death a second–who was pregnant at the time. And he proved to be an unappreciative son; he had Agrippina murdered although he first attempted to make him look like an accident. However, most drowning victims don’t have stab wounds.

The Empress Irene (752-803) might be one reason that the Byzantines have a bad reputation. She had been selected in a beauty contest to be the wife of the Byzantine crown prince. (Doesn’t this already sound like an Aaron Spelling script?) In time, the prince became the Emperor Leo IV–but not for very long. His abrupt death at the age of 30 might seem suspicious. In any case, Irene became the regent for her son, Constantine VI. But, due to the inconveniently high standard of Byzantine life and medicine, Constantine grew up to rule in rule in his right–but not for very long. In 797 Irene had her son blinded and deposed; being patriotic, she was willing to occupy the now vacant throne. How did the world respond to this crime? The Pope sent his congratulations, and the social-climbing Charlemagne offered to marry her.

What happens when you have two children and only one kingdom? What is a mother to do? Isabeau of Bavaria (1370-1435), the Queen Mother of France, thought that there was a practical solution. Her son Charles was repulsive and powerless; her daughter Catherine was more likable and also the Queen of England, married to the repulsive but powerful Henry V. In fact, English armies were occupying half of France and Henry had forced the French to acknowledge him as the next king of France, following the long awaited death of Isabeau’s husband Charles VI. To Henry’s surprise, however, he died first. Then Charles VI died. That raised the question of who should succeed to the French throne: Isabeau’s son or her half-English grandson, Henry VI. Isabeau decided that she preferred her grandson, and then announced that her son Charles was illegitimate. She couldn’t deny his maternity–too many people had noticed her pregnancy–but she certainly could dispute his paternity. Isabeau declared that Charles VI was not the father of the French claimant, and so her son had no right to the throne. Of course, Isabeau was counting on a comfortable English pension for her efforts, but how many other women would confess to to being whores just to spite a child? (If disinherited by his mother, at least the dauphin was adopted by Joan of Arc.)

But let’s conclude this on an uplifting note: Catherine the Great (1729-1796) despised her son Paul and insinuated to him that his paternity was an open question; yet, if only out of etiquette, she could not bring herself to disinheriting him. I guess that makes her this list’s Mother of the Day.

‘ARCHAEOLOGIST FINDS KING HEROD’S TOMB”

A delegation led by Vice President Cheney will transport Herod’s body to its new resting place: the lobby of the Heritage Foundation.The inspiration and probable ancestor of the NeoConservatives, Herod now is remembered chiefly as a villain of the New Testament and the first husband of Midge Decter.

A Three Minute Screenplay 

(Aerial view of the United States, panning to Lake Michigan, where the water is a sickly yellow and bubbling, and the fish are screaming.) 

(Next scene: It is a beautiful morning in Washington, D.C., and President Bush and Vice President  Cheney  are enjoying the day by waterboarding a butterfly.)

VP:  They take a long time to drown.    

(Suddenly the shrubs stir and Karl Rove sticks his head out of the foliage.)

Karl:  You know our friends at Amalgamated Entropy will be at your next fundraiser.  They’re willing to have a bad table.

VP:  Why?

Karl:  Think of it as an apology.  Remember Chicago? 

(Image of a Chicago signpost half corroded away.  Yellow fumes waft through a city of skeletons wearing Cub caps and holding pizza boxes.)

Karl:  Our friends made an honest mistake.  Amalgamated Entropy was complying with your new environmental waste laws.

The plutonium and the arsenic were all doubled bagged, and 50 tons of toxic waste really is not very much when you consider the size of Lake Michigan.  

The company is truly sorry, but it would be unfair to the stockholders to take the blame for four million dead.

Pres:  Could we blame the Capone Gang?

Karl:  No, the Mafia bought three tables at the fundraiser. 

VP:  Four million dead, eh?  We must order troops immediately for clean-up operations.

(Image of soldiers in Hazmat outfits going through the pockets and purses of the corpses for money.)

Karl: Can we trust the soldiers with the money?

VP:  You’re right.  We’ll use Boy Scouts instead. 

(Image of Boy Scouts robbing the corpses.)

Pres:  They’ll earn a merit badge. 

VP:  Now, how can we sell the corpses?  I can always use a few donor organs.

Karl:  Pet Food companies will buy some of the bodies.  It’s gotta to be better than what they usually use.  China might buy the rest-if we don’t ask any questions.

Pres:  Well, Karl, we now only have Four Great Lakes left.  I hope that in the future our friends will be more careful with toxic waste. 

Dump it on the Canadian side.

(Image of the Canadian flag with the maple leaves crumbling.)

A friend recently forced a novel on me, assuring me that I would enjoy it.  She will be pleased to know that both her literary judgment and powers of intimidation are impeccable.  The novel is “Pompeii”, by Robert Harris.  It is  a detective story set in the ancient and poorly located Roman resort.  I won’t spoil the ending for you–because Vesuvius already did–but it is a must-read if you are ever planning to build or manage an aqueduct. 

Roman engineering really was remarkable, able to transport water hundreds of miles to supply the needs and delights of its citizens.  After the Roman Empire collapsed, Western Europe would not approach–or even consider–that level of classical hygiene until the 20th century.  In the 19th century, Joseph Lister noticed that his patients lived longer if he washed his hands.  The Moorish physicians had come to the same realization some seven centuries earlier (but who is going to believe a heathen).

My greater appreciation of Roman hydraulics and hygiene was incited by the novel, whose detective plot concerns a mystery in the waterworks department.   The hero discovers that someone has been stealing water and, as I kept reading, I discovered that someone has been stealing plots.  “Pompeii” is a relocated version of “Chinatown.”  Yes, there are a few differences.  The hero here is an engineer rather than a detective and the novel’s heroine is a teenage virgin–which is not anyone’s impression of Faye Dunaway.  

Apparently, I am not the only one who noticed a similarity.  Roman Polanski will be directing the film version of “Pompeii”.  Guess who directed “Chinatown”?

RUPERT MURDOCH’S WALL STREET JOURNAL

If he acquires Dow Jones Publishing, Australia’s gift to Megalomania certainly would enliven the Staidest Quo.  Expect a page three centerfold:  The New York Stacked Exchange.  And instead of an 3000 word article on in-house promotions at Proctor & Gamble’s Human Resource department, imagine these front page stories:

WIFE-SWAPPING AT THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD