maandag 3 oktober 2005

October 3, 2005

This part of our weekly website originated from an article sent to us by an outraged low-level staffer inside the White House concerning the President’s seizures and other problems. It was met with great interest and loud denunciation. One White House employee wrote that while some of the reportage was true, the rest was not but others with an intimate knowledge of what we called the ‘Monkey Palace’ wrote to basically confirm the truth of various issues.

The original writer eventually decided that discretion was the better part of valor and retreated into silence but by the time he did, a number of other sources had come forward, all of them on a regular basis. One was with the Department of State, another with the CIA, a third with the Department of Justice, yet another with the Department of Homeland Security and the last two were a Washington-based newsman and a Beltway attorney. Their material would be put together on a regular basis and rewritten for publication.

This column has caused spastic colon amongst both the self-important bloggers and government officials combined but is has a large number of readers.

Now, it has been decided to change the title of the article and let one person, with access to the same sources, actually write the entire column. The name will be changed from ‘The Voice of the White House’ to the ‘Iconoclast.’

An iconoclast is a person who, according to the dictionary, is one “who attacks cherished beliefs , traditional institutions, etc. as being based on error or superstition.”

In 1895, a newspaper appeared in Waco, Texas, published by a certain William Cowper Brann. It was called the Iconoclast or breaker of idols. Brann took on just about everybody, including Pentecostals, Baptists (whom he said weren’t held under water long enough) the British royal family, assorted bigots, crooked politicians and other fools. It was Brann’s attacks on corruption at Baylor University that was his undoing. He was shot in the back by a director of that institution. Although returning the fire and killing his attacker, Brann died and the Iconoclast died with him. Herewith a quote from Brann that is as apt today as it was the United States of the 1890s.:

“Falsehood is an amorphous monster, conceived in the brain of knaves and brought forth by the breath of fools. It's a mortal pestilence, a miasmic vapor that passes, like a blast from hell, over the face of the world and is gone forever. It may leave death in its wake and disaster dire; it may place on the brow of purity the brand of the courtesan and cover the hero with the stigma of the coward; it may wreck hopes and ruin homes, cause blood to flow and hearts to break; it may pollute the altar and disgrace the throne, corrupt the courts and curse the land, but the lie cannot live forever, and when it's dead and damned there's none so poor as to do it reverence.” William Cowper Brann

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