IF YOU CANNOT FIND OSAMA:
BOMB IRAQ!

By Connie Corcoran Wilson, M.S.

Just before we did the “shock and awe” number, dropping tons and tons of smart bombs on Iraq on April 9, 2003, I was sent this e-mail message by a friend of a friend. I found the ditty to be right on in its message, which was as follows:

(Sung to the tune of “If You're Happy and You Know It”)

If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty,
North Korea's much too risky: Bomb Iraq!

Although we have no allies with us:  Bomb Iraq!
If we think someone has “dissed” us, Bomb Iraq!
So, to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions: Bomb Iraq!

It's “pre-emptive non-aggression”: Bomb Iraq!
To prevent “mass destruction”: Bomb Iraq!
They've got weapons we can't see
And that's good enough for me
'Cause it's all the proof I need: Bomb Iraq!

If you never were elected: Bomb Iraq!
If your mood is quite dejected: Bomb Iraq!
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
AND HE TRIED TO KILL YOUR DAD! Bomb Iraq!

If your corporate fraud is growin':  Bomb Iraq!
If your ties to it are showing:  Bomb Iraq!
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your manhood's getting queasy:  Bomb Iraq!

Fall in line and follow orders:  Bomb Iraq!
For our might knows not our borders:  Bomb Iraq!
Disagree? We'll call it treason,
Let's make war, not love, this season,
Even if we have no reason:  Bomb Iraq!

This contribution amused me mightily, and I took it with me to my volunteer reading to the visually disabled on WVIK (Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois), sharing it with the young clerk who was the night watchman of the shift.  I had been reading to the blind and visually impaired, as a good deed, for over a year.  It had come to my attention that even the blind and visually impaired might be bored to near-death or coma by one entire hour filled with nothing but grocery prices and obituaries.  So, during the three-minute break we were entitled to take at the half hour, I would normally bring something “funny” from the newspaper. 

Nobody had ever noticed or commented on the fact that, during MY three minutes, I would (occasionally) digress and read something other than an obituary. (The obituaries are “the favorite show.” I'm wondering if the listeners are just making sure that they're not in them.) It was not a subversive act. I even sang a verse for John, the student watchman, before I entered the booth.

The night all hell broke loose was the first night that WVIK had installed its new equipment.  Because they were having trouble regulating the volume levels of the new equipment, an engineer was (apparently) listening that night, along with my three regular listeners huddled together in a tiny closet in Silvis or Colona or Milan somewhere, with their special receivers.

Just as I launched in to the second stanza of “If You Cannot Find Osama, Bomb Iraq!” an engineer, who, henceforth, shall be dubbed “a pin-headed engineer,” (actually, it was his shirt that was pin-striped, but who's keeping score, really?) burst in to my cubicle, frantically making the universally known “cut” gesture at the neckline and practically foaming at the mouth. Geez!

I carefully turned the button to place the channel on the network, which meant that pre-canned music would further anaesthetize the blind who were listening, picked up my things, and left.  After all, I was an unpaid volunteer and the unpleasantness of this guy's frenzy cannot be over-stated.

Mr. Pinhead then flew after me, following me in to the parking lot, frothing with indignation, and quoting, “FCC” this, that and the other thing.  It was snowing outside at the time. I said. “Calm down or you'll have a stroke.”  Then, I got in my car and drove away.  When he followed me the second time, I think I said, “Chill and get a life,” but I really don't remember.  It was cold.  He was sputtering something about agreeing with me, in principle, but upholding until death the FCC, and I was freezing.

At the bottom of the hill, I realized that I had left my sweater in the broadcast booth. I drove back to retrieve it.

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE HUMOROUS ADVENTURES OF CONNIE CORCORAN WILSON:

Or, better yet, buy Connie Corcoran Wilson's book, Both Sides Now available at her website (www.ConnieCorcoranWilson.com) or at Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com, which has this story and many others too funny (and long) to recount here in their entirety.

Next installment: Will Connie be entombed in a radio booth with bars, not allowed to contact her attorney, and held without charges for two and one-half years, or will WVIK just send her packing to the Halliburton-built holding cells already in place in Guantanamo Bay? Will Connie be tied to the nearby Rock Island lines railroad tracks? And, if so, will local Dean supporters rescue her before the train cuts her in half?  Yikes!

[Tune in for further blog installments of this and many other humorous adventures of this not-easily-silenced Deaniac!]