Isle of Remote

Cheney Converts to Islam
Posted by Eric Kenning on March 02, 2007

Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, was sworn in as the nation’s first Muslim member of Congress in early January, but he is not the highest-ranking Muslim official in the United States. That honor belongs to Vice President Dick Cheney, who during one of his many trips to Saudi Arabia in the 1990s on behalf of Halliburton secretly converted to Wahabbi Islam, a rigorous fundamentalist version of the faith. In 1997, according to sources in Riyadh, Cheney visited the dusty provincial town of Bakh-Asward, a Wahabbi stronghold, where he realized he had found exactly what he was looking for, a religion that was grim, rancorous, authoritarian, and violent, and yet, on the other hand, insane.

Since that time, Cheney has been working tirelessly to restore the medieval Islamic empire, or caliphate, in the Middle East and has actually been toying with the idea of naming himself caliph, or at least pulling strings behind the scenes as vice caliph. The centerpiece of this secret strategy has been the carefully planned and executed war in Iraq, which has done so much to raise the prestige and power of jihadists in that country and elsewhere. That’s why Jihadtime magazine, a weekly published out of a cave somewhere between the lawless Pakistani border region of North Waziristan and the lawless Afghan border region of South Wazooistan, sent Cheney a copy of its year-end issue with a mirror on the cover, which proclaimed that “Our annual ‘Person of the Year’ is you–yes, you, along with all the other neo-armchair warriors out there who have done so much for our cause.”

Cheney has kept his faith a private matter, choosing not to reveal it to President Bush, a sincere Christian who has vowed to read the entire Bible someday, just as soon as he finishes My Pet Goat. But it has led to considerable tension in the Cheney household, where the devout veep unrolls a prayer rug and prays five times a day facing toward an oil well just outside Mecca. In particular, his conversion to Wahabbi Islam has led to bitter arguments with his daughter Mary, who converted to an entirely different sect, Wasabi Islam, while having dinner at a fusion sushi and shish-kebab restaurant in Georgetown last month with her partner Heather Poe. The heated exchanges between father and daughter have been further complicated by the fact that Cheney’s wife, Lynne, is a devotee of the ancient Egyptian snake goddess Irma.

Cheney’s strict adherence to militant Islam has also caused problems with his fellow neoconservatives, most of whom are equally devout, but adhere to a rival sect, militant Bedlam.

Eric Kenning is the pen name of a writer in New York. He can be reached at eric_kenning@hotmail.com. This piece originally appeared in the journal Liberty. Article URL: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/cheney_converts_to_islam/

I’ve said this before - I’m going to get out there where the men are. I’m going to make an effort to look less crazy and more put-together. But this time I’m serious. I no longer believe that my Ren Faire costume makes good casual wear. I no longer believe that looking people directly in the eye constitutes aggression and I will do it more often. I now acknowledge that I am funny and that means I don’t have to TRY to be funny 24/7. I will pursue an unisex hobby or interest.

If I do not do these things in the next six months, I will …. hmm, what’s a good incentive? Okay, I’ve got it. If I don’t do the above things in the next six months I will have to $100 to the Republicans. There. That ought to do it!

Well I don’t think this is exactly the time to give up the blog. What with the clinical depression and all. I think I’ve just been avoiding the writing because I don’t want to have to deal with a lot of things in my life right now. And the way I deal with things is by writing.

But it occurred to me today, just this evening, in fact, that a lot of my depression has to do with my being single (and without prospects) and getting up there in years. I always thought I would have children, and even in my early 20s I had thought about adopting. It just never felt like it would be right to adopt without having a father. My issues with my own father have affected my decisions there. Plus seeing all that my mother went through - it would be really rough for me to raise a child by myself. Add to that my experience with 2-parent households and I’m really reluctant to bring home a child. It always seems to me that 2-parent households have a stability and a…..casualness, for lack of a better word that single parent households lack.

Sigh. Bad punctuation….but I’m on to something here, I think.

When my grandmother first got sick I remember making the conscious decision to put my “dating” life on hold. Not that I was dating, really, but I didn’t do much to encourage the opposite sex. My reasoning being that I have friend, great friends and maintaining those friends takes up a lot of time. To welcome someone new into my life, a new relationship, would take time away from either my grandmother or my friends. Somewhere along the line I got comfortable with that and I lost that flirtatious part of myself. I sort of lost the ability to make friends. Which is not to say I did not acquire new friends, but I only acquired them out of necessity (co-workers) or because they pursued me.

I used to have a lot of male friends. Now I don’t. Barely any, actually. And now being around men makes me uncomfortable - like they’re passing judgment on me and finding me lacking. I don’t know.

But I didn’t really think this affected me so much. But now I think it really has. In the last couple of years, I lost my grandmother, found my father, gotten a new job, gained a lot of weight, had a “nervous breakdown” and probably gone into peri-menopause. It’s a lot to take in. And now I’m alone. And I don’t want to be. And I miss my grandmother.

I don’t know where I go from here, but I think it’s a good place to start. I’m in therapy, you know. It’s good. I highly recommend it. It’s nice to have an impartial sounding board where you don’t have to talk about anyone else, just yourself, for an hour. Of course, medication helps too.

So I don’t think I’ll be closing down the blog just yet. I think it’s important to clarify the things in my brain for a little while longer. It’ll take some time to get back in the swing of things.

Been thinking about shutting down the blog. Don’t really have much to say and I’m floating in sea of undecided-ness. It might be time for me to travel down another path. When I started this blog I was very excited about have a journal that I could refer back to and keep my thoughts all down in one place. Now I feel like that is too much for me to worry about right now. I’m still mulling it over. We’ll have to wait and see.

I came across a “political” blog the other day and, like many amateur politic blogs these days, it was full of vitriolic name-calling and hostility. Add to that a liberal sprinkling of morality hoo-hah and self-righteousness and you have a really nice commentary on what is wrong with the world today.

Now I’m the last person to deny my belief in God, but my belief doesn’t rest on the basis that everyone else is wrong. This belief of mine is what resonates in the very core of my being. I can’t deny it even when I try. But beating someone over the head with it is not who I am. It’s not who God wants me to be either.

I really think those people who are name-calling from one side of their mouths and calling on the name of God from the other, need to sit back and do a little reading. Cuz frankly I’m tired of it. And God’s tired of it. It makes Him look bad. It puts Him in the political arena where He does not want to be. He is not running for office. If you believe in Him, then He is the first and last word. He is Alpha and Omega. He is the creator of the universe and every person in it.

When we force God to fit in with our own personal agenda, we put Him in a box. We limit His power and influence. God is not Democrat or Republican. He is God. So much bigger and better than we give Him credit for. Don’t use Him, respect Him and honor Him and be humble before Him.

Two posts in two days?! Has the world stopped spinning on its axis? Has gas gone down to $.15/gallon? Have Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump produced a scraggly haired love child? Time was I used to post quite regularly. Now, not so much.

After I saw my Dad two years ago things have been kind of strange. Especially after I went crazy. He calls me, emails me, IMs me. It’s a little bizarre. Of course, I realize that I look at everything he does through a microscope searching for hidden motives and without any kind of faith that it will last. I believe they call it self-preservation. I don’t want to be hurt by him again.

Oddly enough, I am perfectly capable of giving him what he needs from me. At least I think I am. I’m perky on the phone, I don’t ask for anything. I say the right words. And I don’t stutter when he calls me his baby or his little girl.

He told me a lot about his bout with mental illness. A lot more intense than my own, thank you very much. A lot of similarities. In fact, there are a lot of similarities between us that I’m none too happy about. My mother and father have created this odd conglomeration of weakness and strength, optimism and practicality that shows up at the weirdest times. And frustrates me to no end.

My mother is a planner. My father is a dreamer. My mother has very little tolerance for people who don’t have both feet firmly planted on terra firma. She is a saver. My father is a spender. My mother is all about the details. My father is more interested in the big picture.

One would think that my forty years of maternal influence would leave me more like her. Yet, those fifteen years with the pater have left their mark. I’m a reluctant saver - it has to come directly out of my paycheck and go somewhere where I can’t touch it. I’m a by-the-seat-of-my-pants planner at best. More aptly, I like to save things till the last minute because I know I’ll be more “on” then and things will come together better. My brain is constantly awash with different schemes to give me the life I always wanted yet the practical side of me tends to offer more criticism than support - telling me I need something to fall back on.

I have to work on using these traits to my advantage. I have to turn my weaknessess into strengths. Easier said than done, right?

Okay, I’ve been trying to log on here for a long time. Wouldn’t let me. Was considering moving to another host, but since I couldn’t even get on to move my files, that wasn’t a very appealing idea. Now, today, I just sign right in. Weird.

Anyhoo, I’m back. I’m doing well. I survived a brief bout of not taking my meds. What can I say? I thought I could stop cold turkey. Didn’t attribute the 24 hour dizziness to anything but not eating right. I mean, I was having dreams about being dizzy! How weird is that? But now things are back on an even keel.

Have been watching a lot of movies lately (Yay! Netflix!) Loved Little Miss Sunshine! You gotta love that little Olive. I want to be her when I grow up.

Looking for a new job - 2 interviews this Friday. Both have presentations. Neither of which I understand. Ugh! I’ve been doing research and trying to piece the thing together, but I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

Having money troubles. Trying not to obsess over that. Still not back to working full-time, but it’s a good thing right now. Work still exhausts me. Although I’m supposed to be trying not to sleep so much according to my doctor. I think I’m slowly turning into a cat….I’ll be up to 18 hours of sleep per night soon.

I’ve been bouncing about different churches too. Not really assured of my place. Stills rankles me how out of place single men and women are if they are over the age of thirty. So I’m feeling plenty of not-fitting-in-ness this year that I wasn’t emotionally prepared for.

Friends are taking good care of me and making sure I’m not holed up in my apartment for too long. But sometimes its hard doing things with them as well. Especially since most of my friends are coupled up. It gets tired feeling like the fifth wheel all the time. Sometimes it takes me an hour or so just to talk myself into going to a party or whatever because I dont to be the Sad Single Gal.

Of course I’m doing absolutely nothing to change that status. I mean, nearly everything I do is so girly-centric. I never meet guys. Decent guys anyway. I meet the ones whose wives don’t understand them or who haven’t had any gainful employment since the Carter administration.

One terribly negative thing about having a nervous breakdown is you start thinking about yourself waaaay too much. I mean, I talk about myself, medicate myself, write about myself, give myself “space” and pamper myself. I’m so freaking bored with myself I could just scream!

So I guess my natural conclusion is I should just go out there and Live Life. Full Speed Ahead. Don’t Look Back. Yeah, after this little nap….

I haven’t been writing as regularly. Maybe you’ve noticed? Well I have been going through some stuff for the past…7 months and I didn’t want to write about it. Sometimes when you write things down they become too real and too personal. And you know, even though this blog started as a journal and I shouldn’t care about what gets written here, I am too often aware that people read this. And I start to worry about being a whiner and a complainer. But you know, it’s still my blog and I should say whatever I want.

So back in March I sort of flipped my lid. Well, I wasn’t running around outside with my underwear on my head or anything like that. I just could get off the couch. I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t think straight. I had a weird bunch of physical symptoms like a popping noise in my head, dizziness - especially the phone rang or at a startling sound, blurred vision, unsteady gait, tiredness, loss of appetite, blah, blah, blah. Holed up in my house for a week and didn’t answer the phone. One day my mother sent my friends to come and check on me, because I wasn’t at work and no one had seen or heard from me.

Went to the doctor’s and had a full neuro workup and a slew of tests. Turns out I’m clinically depressed. How boring is that?

I always thought depression meant you felt sad all the time. I rarely feel sad. And when I’m with my friends I’m usually laughing and talking as if everything is okay. But somewhere I dropped the ball. Or actually, I just got tired of carrying the ball. I just wanted to sleep. All day. Everyday.

I just got tired of playing life. I was exhausted.

A lot of it stemmed from work issues, but I think the crux of it was I had somehow just deadened myself to being emotionally commited. In the last five years I went from being a person around whom very few people have died to being the ersatz angel of death. Something like 20 people have died in my life in the last 5 years. You don’t really get proper time to grieve when that happens.

So after four months of therapy and happy pills I was finally deemed well enough to go back to work. I’m still adjusting and learning about it all. I thought if I concentrated and did everything I was supposed to, I could beat depression in 6 months or less. But it’s still my companion.

I feel burdened and confused and tired most of the time. But at least now I know the warning signs and I know not to give in to my natural inclination to keep to myself. Although sometimes it takes a lot for me to get together with my friends. Luckily they know the situation and don’t let me!

There’s also some emotional distress about being single. While most times I’m happy with myself and my life, sometimes its really hard to be “out there”. But it’s also hard to be the single one, too. I have to deal with that day by day. Luckily I have faith to lean on. That has been the only reason this blip in the road of my life has been an adventure instead of the tragedy it’s mapped out to be. I’ve learned so much about me, about my friends and about how God feels for me.

Tragically, I’m a very stubborn, proud and closed person. I don’t like to share the intimate details of my life. But somehow, through this depression thing, I’ve shared with nearly everyone and anyone who will listen. I have had to ask for and accept help and care. I have gotten closer with my mom, my father and my friends. I’ve also learned who my real friends are - some whom I would have thought were my support system failed me, and others who I barely knew offered me care and tenderness. It’s amazing, really.

So that’s the story in a nutshell. I’ll go into more detail later, but I just needed to get this out so I could stop avoiding this important bit of release for me. It’s still my natural tendency to hold things a little too close when I should be letting them out; letting them go. But we live, we learn, we dye our hair green….

I love fall. I guess that is typical of me - it’s so middle of the road. Neither too hot nor too cold, fall is just that perfect time inbetween it all.

Here is southern California we don’t get that radical changes of seasons other areas do, but it’s still a special time. It seems overnight the evenings have a certain briskness; a snap in the air that chills your nose. You start to crave late night cups of cocoa. The afghan on the back of your couch becomes something useful rather than merely decoration.

While summer beckons you to enjoy the outdoors, fall tempts you to cocoon. It softly lures you in with coppery butternut squash, back to school supplies and new boots. A southern California fall is like a parent whispering you to sleep.

When I was a kid I loved going back to school. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my summers! Playing all day and nothing more strenuous to do than swim across the pool and catch lightning bugs - not much wrong with that!
But fall was always the beginning for me. New grade, new clothes and yet another chance to convince my classmates I wasn’t the big geek I appeared to be.

So now I’m going to put on my sweater and go out into the 80 degree weather we here call “fall” and enjoy the day. I hope you do the same.

It’s all about a girl and her chicken…

Pass the doobie, Mom!

I hereby resign from the human race. I am now a wombat.