From Drink the Kool Aid to Hair of the Dog

Topic: Politics

Tom Wolfe, wrote a book about LSD called "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". (Every time I hear the title I want to drink black cherry Wylers. My cousin and I used to mix one part of that, one part Ketel One vodka and one part coke, in a pint glass, over ice. It was called the "Rock Star" drink, quite good. It was inspired by William S. Burroughs' vodka and coke mixture, "The Burroughs", not very good.) Anyway, the current catch phrase used to describe those who went along with the war in Iraq is "They drank the "Kool Aid". They were fed the party line about WMD, etc., drank the kool aid and tripped balls, hallucinating that it was a good idea and that all was going well with the untidy misadventure over there. They heard horns, saw bright lights and thought it was a victory parade. It turns out, however, that it wasn't and that they were in fact, standing in the middle of a busy highway at night, watching the pretty trails that drifted behind their hands as they waved them in front of their face. The Kool Aid wore off and they found out it was really the poison laced Jonestown Punch that the Jim Jones cult drank to commit a mass suicide. The Reps. lost the Congress and Rumsfeld lost his job.

One strategy for relieving a hangover is to start drinking again, referred to as "the hair of the dog", as in, "bite the dog that bit you." It's obviously an idiotic idea that postpones the inevitable and makes the pain worse when it finally does come. Genius! Well the equivalent plan is about to be implemented in Iraq. They're calling it "The Surge" and it consists of dropping acid then adding more troops to the force in place, I guess so they can join in the fun.

Have a nice trip, hope you enjoy the fall.