By Tom Hunter

I have read many many Stephen King books and stories, fiction and non-fiction.  What fascinates me, is that he sucks you into the story, puts his characters in impossible, horrible situations and then somehow saves the day.  Why is he one of our most popular writers?

Well, of course, he spins a good yarn.  But I think he does it while at the same time giving us hope that we too might survive against impossible odds and at the same time believe that our cruel reality might just possibly be avenged.

Cruel and heartless (oh yeah!) people like Dick Cheney, instead of becoming richer and richer and spending his time on Fox News rewriting history from his offices at Halliburton Almighty might just wake up in his own nightmare while trying to define torture.

George W. would be forced to see and feel the consequences of sending our youth to kill (90%) and be killed (10%).  He could spend a year begging on the streets of Baghdad and reasoning with the mothers of his victims.

And the great Satan Rupert Murdock.  What could open his eyes to his total war on science?  He would have to become a Christian Scientist and stop going to Doctors and Pharmacists.  He would have to enlist in the Marines and do back to back stints in Afghanistan.  And every other war that he is trying to encourage.

And what of our brave boys in Congress?  For every war bill that they voted for they would be required to spend a year fighting in that war (even if it was in a wheelchair).  And another year for every year of delay the wounded warriors had to wait in line at the VA.

OK, so I’m not Stephen King and I can’t really imagine a just reward for these bozos. My current favorite in Washington is Louis Gohmert.  He can be seen on C-span spewing his lack of knowledge about everything from women’s right to die to having her barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen – where does he get his material? – the bible told him so. If we could all just get back to the bible and sacrificing sheep and goats and stop spilling our seed on the ground and bring down the firestorm on godless places like San Francisco then we could all go back to the good old days of killing first born and turning the inquisitive into pillars of salt.

Can we be rescued from history?  Only in a Stephen King novel.  Can the good guys triumph?  Not so much.  First of all the winner writes the history and that always prevents that history for being of any use for avoiding the pitfalls that were never mentioned in history.  I love the quiz section in the George W. library where he lays out the options of some big decider decision and asks what you would do – and then tells you you’re wrong if you come up with a different answer?!  Talk about trying to rewrite history – yeehaw!

I look forward to the day when the hard working, intelligent members of congress take a day off from fundraising and beat the living crap out of those who are waiting for the South to rise again and for Bill Nye the Science Guy to declare that every word in the bible is the honest to god truth.

Well, OK, I might have to wait a bit on that, but couldn’t they just throw us a bone and make education fashionable again?