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Ask Dr. Babooner

33 Comments

Dear Dr. Babooner,

They say it is the custom to disguise one’s identity when addressing the great Dr. Babooner, but I am not afraid! My greatness and your greatness can stand side by side because there is something about your face that tells me we are like a brother and sister.

As my sister, you will already know that I do not ask for advice – I share my wisdom with the people. What I have for you today is this – when you are told you must leave a place, especially if it is a place where you have been comfortable for quite some time, it is best to be defiant! Yes, one could pitch one’s tent elsewhere, but the world is unkind to those who are easily dislodged. Jet lag, for example, is God’s vengeance on the weak-willed. Boldly express your insanity and make your critics move instead!

I have no question other than this: How magnificent am I?

Irrationally,
Moammar

I told Moammar he did not appear at all on my personal magnificence chart, but as a provocative, incoherent ranter he is right up there with Charlie Sheen. Saying fatuous, inexplicable things is a well-trod path to getting attention in the world today. However, a publicity-seeking person taking the crazy dictator approach should know when to cash in and move on. Given what I’ve heard about his personal situation at this point, if offered a slot on a reality show, Moammar should take it. Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” would be a perfect vehicle for him. Perhaps the next season could also include Mr. Sheen for a guaranteed ratings bonanza in the first week at least. But it would be wise to get paid in advance.

I did allow that he might have a point about jet lag.
But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

33 thoughts on “Ask Dr. Babooner”

  1. Dear Moammar,
    I think you should ask Dr. Babooner for the name of her hairdresser. It’s time for a new look, and you might find some time in the chair chatting with a sympathetic stylist to have a calming effect

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Well MQ, you don’t appear on my magnificence meter either. Sorry. But, I’ve thought for some time that Fox News has been modeling some of its stars after your techniques outlined above: saying fatuous, crazy things, defiance, and being certain of your place of power that might not be all that secure. I guess the Crazy Dictator approach shows up in different roles in the US, but this approach is here!

    I think Dr. Babooner and MQ have an eerie resemblence with their pictures side by side. Anybody else see it?

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  3. Ha ha… I never thought about the similarities between our letter writer and Charlie Sheen – excellent! I’m thinking there are a handful of folks that should be on the opening show – please include some sofa-jumping by Tom Cruise. Oh, and Paris Hilton should be on as well. I don’t know if she’s said anything fatuous, but I’m just guessing she has!

    However, not sure about the jet-lag. I’ve always attributed my resistance to jetlag to a very forgiving internal clock (daylight savings time doesn’t bug me either). Although I’m sure people might put me in the category of strong-willed category!

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    1. Thanks for that image, Verily. You just gave me another one (you and Jacque working together, actually).

      I think the Tea Party Favorite edition of Survivor might be interesting. With nobody but each other to go after, who would be the ultimate survivor?

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    2. Has Paris Hilton ever said anything fatuous? Well, she made a surprisingly shrewd comment on herself when questioned by cops:

      IN probably the least shocking celebrity statement of the decade, Paris Hilton has admitted that she’s “not like that smart”.

      The confession was made when the star helped police officers with an investigation into a burglary at the house of Hollywood porn baron Joe Francis.

      When cops asked her what she knew, the socialite said: “I’m not that smart… I don’t remember… I forget stuff all the time.”

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  4. i agree with MIG – a little updating on the hair – also a higher neckline and some pearls
    a la Dr. B might help hide that saggy neck a bit. still not magnificent though, but maybe that’s just me.
    we are only about 14 miles or so from the WI border, so we live close enough to dictators. i can do without them.

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  5. Today’s topic excites me because it is right in line with some heavy thinking I’ve been doing. We keep putting pressure on Moammer Quaddafi to put down his guns, but what kind of deal are we offering? How well did surrender work out for Saddam? If you were Moammer, how eager would YOU be to throw in the towel and face a thousand lawsuits on stolen wealth and decades of brutal atrocities? Think of the lawyer’s bills, and you’re probably going to be shot or hung anyway. As retirement plans go, this one is a hard sell.

    No, no, no! What we need is an attractive alternative to that so dictators who find themselves cornered could cut their losses and go somewhere nicer than prison. We could create a special island community in the middle of the Pacific and set it up to be a fancy residence for retired despots. Give them a decent cable package, health coverage with dental, little compounds to live in (with pools) and a modest clothing budget. Maybe even a golf course (watch out for sand traps, and the water hazard is a killer!). I’m feeling generous because I want this place to be an appealing alternative. Heck, I would be willing for the health plan to include a few statuesque Ukrainian nurses, assuming there would be volunteers for that.

    What would be taken away forever would be the power to steal from, torture and murder helpless citizens. I’d be in favor of letting the island residents create their own police force, which could be an interesting experiment if you have local law enforcement being organized by Idi Amin, Quaddafi, Omar al-Bashir, Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe and folks like that. Town council meetings could be fascinating. This is a place, if you lived in it, where you sure wouldn’t want to “get voted off the island” by other residents.

    People with regard for civil rights and justice are sure to argue that we shouldn’t reward atrocious conduct, but that is sappy thinking. Atrocious conduct has always been rewarded. We’d just be moving the shittiest people on earth to a little place where they can’t do any more harm to anyone except each other. Better that than civil war, which is the historical precendent.

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  6. Good morning to all:

    Moammar, you are among the most magnificent, if you think of Hitler and Stalin as magnificent. Also, you have been magnificent in the way you put our great world leaders in a difficult place. While you kill your own people, those world leaders can’t find a way to put a stop to it. It is way passed the time when both you and the world leaders should have learned that killing people to get your way will only end in more killing, but you are too magnificent to think about that.

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  7. great likeness.
    maybe molimar could sub as a guest host on dr babaooner when she needs a week off. i am sure the answers we get would be interesting. steve i like the idea of the pacific desert island but i think the funding for the island would come into question. what would happen if you got the whole island full of the worlds shittiest people and then the tea party decided to cut the funding and we had to find a way to pay for the statuesque servants without taxpayers dollars.

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  8. what i do find amazing is that all these guys have been hanging out over there for years and years and there has been no problem. we knew the oil money was going to the rich guys with the fuynny turbans and the governments were not democracies but we picked the ones we needed to be able to have our desireable poisition in the middle east and let it go at that,. today we are outraged atht ehdowntrodden lifes that these people have been forced to live all these years by the tyrants and dictators that should have beem ousted years ago. it is so interesting that we are so outraged today and havent given it a thought for the previous 30 years. god bless facebook youtube and twitter. what a difference being able to speak your mind makes. look what it has done for baboons!

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    1. When I was young, the Cold War forced the US into all sorts of unholy alliances with brutal dictators (especially in S America and the MidEast). Now it is the need to get cheap oil and friends in the fight against terrorist groups. We have always had unsavory friends.

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  9. ot
    does anyone want to go see poet tom doty tomorrow night at the hopkins center for the arts at 730. i have a couple tickets.
    i think joyce carol oates is at minneapolis public library tonight for free

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    1. So wish I could go, but it seems rude to duck out of my own anniversary dinner to go see a poet…wouldn’t be prudent (and Husband is not really a poetry kinda guy, alas – many other good qualities, but poetry appreciation is not among them).

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  10. I’m sure that Moammar could find work out in ND in the oil field. They are always looking for roughnecks and rig workers. If I were him, though, I would wait until next December or January, since then he can experience the invigorating weather out on the windy steppes of the Bakken formation. I bet the guys who he would drive out to the well sites with would be so happy to work with him and would give him the most exciting (and dangerous) jobs. Housing might be a problem, but I’m sure he could live in his RV in the south-side trailer park. It would be so cozy and snug there during a blizzard.

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    1. I forgot to mention that we have real culture out here, too. Why, I read in today’s local paper that the convenience store in Medora (a very small town 40 miles west in the Badlands) is having a wine tasting this weekend. I heard they are offering a discount on wine mixed with ethanol. He could also participate in the winter coyote hunt and the American Petroleum Institute gumbo cookoff in February. It’s a never ending cavalcade of fun out here.

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    2. My husband reminds me that Moammar could also have cheese buttons every Friday and enter the Ukrainian Cultural Institute pysanky competition. He’d have to bring his own personal psychiatrist, since I don’t think we have one in our state west of the Missouri River.

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      1. I’m having a lot of trouble envisioning Moammar being patient enough to hold the kiska steady while doing pysanky!

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      4. He might be a natural for pysanky. In my office I have a poster from the Metropolitain Museum of Art for an exhibit of beautiful Islamic calligraphy. It is very intricate work and bears much resemblance to pysanky designs.

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  11. I kind of like Steve’s island idea, too – it has its charms. And there are plenty of atolls in the Pacific, so if NATO needed to, we could separate those who need to go to different corners because they’re not sharing or playing well with others. They can get gold stars when they remember to do nice things – shiny ones they can pin on their chests. And a big bouncy castle for when they need to jump up and down and rant a bit (though they should, perhaps, take the gold star pins off while they jump, lest they injure themselves or puncture the castle).

    Thinking with all of the changes and unrest in the Middle East it’s time to re-read “Desert Queen” – a fascinating read about a woman who was heavily involved in drawing the boundaries that created countries out of whole cloth (or desert). Can’t help but wonder how different the mess would be if The Powers That Be had paid closer attention to tribal alliances and conflicts instead of what was expedient at the time.

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    1. Anna – I just read “Desert Queen” in February. Wonderful book and a reminder of how much history has led up to where we are now!

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  12. Dear MQ,
    I agree that you need a new hairdresser. Asking Dr. Babooner for advice in this regard is only a start. You’ll also need an unrelentingly fierce personal trainer and an uncompromisingly blunt psychiatrist. A plastic surgeon wouldn’t hurt either.

    Actually, I’m afraid that your image next to Dr. Babooner’s is kind of insulting to the good doctor. I don’t see the likeness at all, really. Dr. Babooner is conscious of appearance and takes good care of herself. Your self-image needs a big reality check. I guess you don’t rate very high on my magnificence scale either. Charlie Sheen rates only a little better because he doesn’t kill off his own people.

    I like the idea of an island of no return. Not a nice, sunny Pacific island, mind you, but a cold and windy one somewhere near Antarctica. Maybe an iceberg. You could go there with Dick Cheney, Wisconsin’s governor Walker, the Troll and T-paw (with his new southern accent). You’d have a lot in common with these folks and you could try to think up new ways of making working people do more with less, making poor people suffer and killing off everybody who disagrees with you.

    There’s a problem with the island strategy, though: what island would take you? Who would want such a bunch? The iceberg idea works well for me. Global warming caused by the excessive consumption of fossil fuels will melt your little floating island and then you’ll be, well…

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  13. “Every person has the power to make others happy.
    Some do it simply by entering a room — others by leaving the room.”
    – William Arthur Ward

    I hope you will use your power wisely, MQ.

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