The White Rabbit versus the Forces of Evil

It was a front page story (albeit below the fold and (thankfully) without a picture) in one of my local newspapers, US Offers Viagra to win over Afghan Warlords, and probably in about the same place in your newspaper (somewhere Peter Zenger weeps, I know). And it just goes to show that decades after DuPont abandoned their slogan, "better living through chemistry", it is still so often the case.

As someone who uses Rogaine, this will sound untrue and/or unkind: I figure a man gets just so many sunrises and sunsets, allegorically speaking, and while I know men who use Viagra and whose partners claim they are the better for it, I just don't see it (or didn't, until reading this story). Let's face it, the guys I know who use it, don't know anything about the Taliban, much less where any of them are. And, says this story, the CIA gives some tribal leader up there in the Khyber Butt Crack region of Carjackistan a couple of blue pills and, BINGO! (not yet, JM, but soon), we're rounding up bad guys.

The article quotes a CIA case officer that 'other inducements' (= bribes) have down sides, such as guns that could end up in the wrong hands and money which might lead to conspicuous consumption, so Viagra is a win/win. I suppose the Taliban could see who's on the take by conducting a lap to lap search. If the tribal elder appears to have more than the proverbial camel's nose under the tent, so to speak, he might be a Pfizer Friend. (And who writes a priapsis warning like "in the rare event of an erection lasting more than 4 hours, seek immediate medical help to avoid long-term injury"? Guys don't ask for directions when they get lost driving. In this case, calling the Guinness people, maybe. Medical personnel? I think not. Far more likely "a old bois d' arc fence post You could hang a pipe rail gait from " while playing Choctaw Bingo. Happy now, JM?)

So as discomfiting as I find this kind of story (and maybe it only hurts when they walk, how would I know) I need only recall the admonition of Sister Grace (Slick) a banshee prophetess of the San Francisco Revelation all those decades ago, 'remember what the dormouse said! Feed your head.'
-bill kenny