The Terrorist

When it comes right down to it, the biggest terrorist is God. Just look what He's done to New Orleans, and all without resorting to bombs, biological warfare or troop deployment.

Today, everything has changed in the Tri-Lateral Commission Gym. Members just sit around in the weight room, their souls to weak to raise the bars. There is no music in the aerboics gym. The televisions on the treadmills are showing only snow. When one perky journalist announced "Well, it could have been worse", three burly Heritage Foundation representatives heaved her out the door.

Coursing through the minds of everyone present are two unspoken but dreaded words, "Public works". For all those riding the exercycles of power, heedless of actually having to do much besides make lots of money, these words smack of socialism and charity and welfare. This is because New Orleans no longer exists, and its citizens are jobless, homeless, and if not already broke, shortly to become so, and with no one to sue but God, who may be mighty but has no tangible assets. It is nigh impossible for our members to ignore such enormous suffering, try as they might. And besides, the hoi polloi won't let them, at least not on such a monstrous scale.

I think in a few days, when the words "Public Works" transform themselves into the words "Contractors", our membership will slowly start to be uplifted. The preachers are already mumbling about faith based charity. Perhaps God is not a terrorist after all, that He has in fact opened up whole new markets, with money to be made. Our membership by and large is very enterprising.

I can only hope that soon the clatter of exercycle pedals will once again fill the gym.

When the Saints Come Marching In

Well, I haven't posted in a while. That's because the guys from The Center for Reclaiming the Gym had taken over. It happens every so often. Why is it that the guys who don't pay any dues are the ones who like telling everyone else what to do?

Okay, so they came barreling in like the minions of Satan, even though everyone knows they're funded by James Dobson's Coral Ridge ministry. They threw our trainers out and put in their own regimen. Our regular patrons half expected this, so most of them went on vacation.

This, of course, meant that for the month of August, the gym became a Christians Only place of exercise.

And that's when the war began.

It happened when one of our last remaining patrons was exposed for belonging to Opus Dei. The Center for Reclaiming the Gym decided that the self-flagellation characteristic of the group had all the earmarks of a communist plot. They strung the guy up to the Nautilus machine, not understanding that this machine belonged exclusively to members of the Southern Baptist Conference. There were immediate reprisals. The sound of artillery firing across the Olympic sized pool. A heroic stand by a group of masons in the weight room. The unintentional grenade on the tennis courts. Prisoners being marched along the treadmills.

It was a mess. Finally, Dick Cheney had to send in members of the BlackWater Security Corporation to quell the violence. Former Delta Force members, the BlackWater guys made short work of the Center for Reclaiming the Gym, forcing them to withdraw to the distant Center for Public Policy gym. And all Blackwater wanted in return was the diamond mine.

What diamond mine, you might say, but that's another story.

But for now, except for the sound of the Halliburton backhoes and jackhammers, there's peace once again here in the gym.