and  Kathryn of Omaha TV

We spent our last Memorial vacation day on the beach before I went back to Mars. It was splendid weather. Sue and Pete unfolded our beach chairs and Kathryn opened her picnic bag. The surf was rolling softly and we thought it was going to be a quiet afternoon. But not so. Taher and Aaron came strolling down the beach and, when they saw us, immediately joined.

“How are you,” Taher said jovially, extending his hand.

“It’s our last day here,” Aaron announced, looking sorry.

“Ours too,” Kathryn said, smiling sadly. “Please sit down. Want a sandwich?”

“If it’s no ham,” Taher said.

“Yes, no ham,” Aaron echoed.

“Gouda cheese would do?” I asked, handing them one each.

“Great,” Aaron said, and they chewed on it hungrily.

“Funny you both don’t eat pork,” Kathryn chuckled, giving them a coke, “about the only thing Jews and Muslims seem to agree on.”

“Your boarding that Flotilla didn’t go that well, did it?” Pete asked sarcastically.

“They came armed with sticks and knives, those peace loving pigs,” Aaron growled. “Wearing hoods.”

“They were given ample opportunity to call on port and deliver their stuff peacefully but refused,” Taher added. “Of course, they had an ulterior motive.”

“As we predicted,” Aaron said, “world TV broke loose in a bludgeoning attack on us. Nobody’s giving a damn about what Hamas and Hezbollah are concocting in the meantime to destroy us.”

“Yes,” Sue said, “I read in the papers that European countries condemned the boarding.”

“Next time shoot their rudder and propellers and stay under water,” MIT Pete suggested.

“Agree,” Taher said, sucking his coke. “We could’ve done better, but the issue of the double standard remains.”

“You know,” I said, “European countries have that luxury of making their hollow screams about being shocked by what they call harsh Israeli treatment because when push comes to shove they know you can take care of yourself. They don’t want to give you open moral support because it upsets their Muslim populations while they comfortably know you don’t need it. But I’m sure internally they talk otherwise.”

“The danger is,” Aaron said, “that if they don’t speak up, they may not be able to rein in the growing monster. It’s a risky game talking out of both sides of your mouth.”

“The tricky actors in this war game are Turkey and Egypt.” Taher explained. “A few years back, Turkey was a friend of Israel and we taught them a lot. They are a NATO alley, of all things! Their new Government seems to be drifting away to the radical jihadists, who were behind this flotilla. They may need another military coup to set them straight. This is not reflecting Ataturk’s mindset. And Egypt is another unreliable kink in the cable. They are part of the blockade, but lots of arms are smuggled into Gaza from the Sinai and they seem unable or unwilling to do much about it.”

“Meanwhile we have to keep afloat with a feckless administration that wants to have its cake and eat it,” Kathryn said. “Oil spill in the Gulf they can’t handle, a stubborn sluggish economy despite all the taxpayer money they threw at it, political corruption all over again, a president unwilling to assert himself internationally, it’s depressing.”

“The Israeli case is not a minute matter,” Sue said. “As a lawyer, I can prove the Arabs they don’t have a leg to stand on. Jews have been there as long as they have. They were friends and foes of their Mohammed. And surely not Iran. Look at Persia’s history. They have been all over Arabia before they were chased back. Shiites fighting Sunnis. It’s religious war. Secular states should put an end to this nonsense, but they are too afraid of the fanatics in their midst.”

“Well spoken, young lady,” Taher said, approvingly. “It shouldn’t be the Middle Ages anymore, but it still is.”

“Don’t forget Protestants and Catholics continued fighting each other in Northern Ireland not so long ago,” Kathryn said, mockingly.

“What is it with religion that makes us fight in the name of God?” Sue asked.

“It’s because you earthlings don’t know the universe,” I said. “Here, everybody made up his own God to fill the gap of the unknown and believes theirs is the only right one. Whole systems are built on these parochial perceptions. We in Mars have long understood that the Universe is God, that we are all part of it, and that we don’t need to fight about it. On Mars, we apply a similar legal framework as your Ten Commandments that many here want to throw overboard. But that’s all you need.”

Taher and Aaron stood up.

“Thanks for the cheese sandwiches and the coke,” Aaron said.

“Yes,” Taher added, shaking my hand and staring me in the face. “We don’t have your wisdom yet, Mr Mars. I didn’t know you were from there, but you have those funny eyes.”

I saw Pete and Sue exchange furtive looks at each other.

“Don’t worry, Taher, “you’ll get there one day.”

We embraced each other and waved them goodbye.

That same night I changed into my Mars costume, mounted my space scooter,  and spurted back into the universe rom the beach, leaving Kathryn, Pete and Sue behind on their wicked little quarreling world.

Back on the beach for Memorial Day, a guy with a turban and another with a kippah strolled through the sand in our direction. Miraculously, they were walking friendly together, both in swim trunks and a towel in their hands.

“We’re in the hotel there,” said the fellow with the turban when I asked him where they were from.

“Yeah, great place,” the man with the kippah confirmed.

“You go swimming with those hats on?” Sue asked, laughing.

They ignored Sue’s question, probably thinking she was stupid.

“Heard about the flotilla?” Pete inquired.

“Oh yeah, the usual,” the turban guy said. “Everybody’s playtime.”

“You don’t think it’s serious?” Sue asked.

“Rubbish,” the turban guy snorted. “TV fodder.”

“Don’t you think the Israeli’s were too harsh climbing on these boats? Ten people got killed. It was all humanitarian stuff,” Pete said.

“You mind if we sit down?” the turban guy asked, turning to me.

“Sure not,” I said, invitingly. “My name’s Mars Man, just call me Mars. This is Kathryn, my wife, he’s son Pete and she’s daughter Sue.”

“I’m Taher,” the turban fellow said.

“I’m Aaron,” followed the kippah man.

We shook hands.

“It’s show boat stuff, you know,” Taher continued, nestling down in the sand. “They knew what they were getting into. The humanitarian freight was not the purpose. They wanted to embarrass and make a point and, of course, they knew the whole world would be blaming Israel if they didn’t get through. The real killers are the flotilla organizers; they should’ve known better, but took the risk anyway.”

“You must be a pretty liberal Muslim for saying that,” Kathryn scoffed. “Normally your side always screams loudest when someone does it  to you.”

“Taher’s right,” Aaron said. “Either we board and stop the flotilla, as we told them we would, and we’d be castigated by the UN, or if we didn’t, we’d be called wimps and next time they’d bring in humanitarian tanks and weapons, and nobody in the UN would raise a finger in protest.”

“Everybody in the Mid-East and West, especially this Husain White House, is showing off his PC best again,” Sue ranted. “I’ve yet to see anybody on TV daring to play the same trick on an Arab country.”

“We’ve quite a few Arabs in Israel, you know, who don’t like those Gaza creeps,” Aaron said. “Taher is one of them.”

“Ah, I see,” Kathryn said, understandingly, “so you’re both from Israel.”

“Yes, we are,” Taher affirmed. “We have our internal differences but like any democratic country we solve them peacefully in the Knesset. Those Hamas guys are hotheads. If you don’t join them they shoot you, torture you or cut your head off. They can’t even govern. I don’t understand what that flotilla of peaceniks wanted to achieve.”

“Europe and the USA show increased anti-Semitism,” Aaron said. “Most Jews in the USA voted for the democrats in 2008 but they’re now finding out they got a cat in the bag. Now they’ve to turn the tide in November.”

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“If those overpaid striped suited UN nincompoops drag us before the Council,” Aaron growled, wagging his finger, “we’ll point at all the scuds and stuff that Iran and Syria send to Hezbollah for so-called peaceful use and the UN doesn’t even want to know about, even though everybody else does. This is not the time to be fuzzy with Gaza either.”

“Nothing will happen,” Taher said. “After all the TV and media stuff is done, people get bored and it’ll blow over again.”

“Till someone silly in Tehran blows the fuse,” Kathryn said.

“We won’t let that happen, Ma’am,” Aaron grumbled. “When they do, they won’t have a light to find a match. They know. We won’t wait for the USA. This Administration is rudderless. And forget about the UN. I think it’s time for a swim, Taher. Nice talking to you.”

Taher and Aaron got up and walked to the sea, shaking their heads.

“What do you think, Mars?” Kathryn asked. “Yes dad,” Pete and Sue joined in chorus, “what do you think?”

“Jews and Arabs are from the same breed but they quarrel like Cain and Abel. The family strife will never stop. Cain killed Abel out of jealousy. Israel is a sunshine state. Look at Palestine, let alone Gaza, what dumps despite all the aid they get. If Israel hadn’t been there, they would’ve been even worse-off. Earth has to rein in Cain, but if the USA doesn’t intervene, Abel may be killed again. And the West would never be the same.”

“War?” Pete asked.

“Eventually, I’m afraid so, son. If you want to preserve Kathryn’s Judeo-Christian roots, you’d better stand up for them.”

“More death, more Memorial Days,” Pete sighed.

“That’s the way of life on Mother Earth. Strife is the trump card.”

My mother earth kidzz, son Pete and daughter Sue, mocked me the other day when we were having a barbecue on the beach. Their earthly Mom, Kathryn, just sat by and smiled beautifully.

“You’re lucky you can change into a human skin,” Pete said. “You’d be picked up right away in your Mars costume.”

“You are lucky you’re born with a human skin and look like your earthly mother,” I retorted, “otherwise you’d be picked up right away yourself.”

“We didn’t choose to live here, you made us do that,” Pete said, a bit touchy.

“Anything wrong with that? You got a US passport,” I said in my defense.

“Just that our eyes look different. A bit like those Asians here,” Pete said, sounding wary.

“So what? You did MIT and Sue did Columbia Law and both of you live well. What are you picking at?”

“We always get looked at more carefully,” Sue entered the conversation, “either at the border or when boarding a plane. Yesterday when coming home, they put me through the scanner and all the alarm bells went off.”

“Did they find anything?” I asked, laughing.

“The woman at the scan fainted.”

“What for?” I couldn’t stop laughing.

“She said she didn’t see a body.”

“Well, maybe the machine’s fuse was busted.”

“No dad, there’s nothing on the screen when they scan us.”

“So, what did they do?” I asked, curious, still snickering.

“They sent another woman do a special on me, crotch included.”

“You liked it?” Pete asked, grinning mischievously.

“You shut up,” Sue hissed back. “It’s not funny. You do any profiling on Mars?”

“We all look alike,” I said, “and talk the same, electronic voices. Men have a funny pecker, women have a tight slit. That’s all there is.”

“Yeah, that’s the earthy problem here,” Pete said profoundly. “Different skins, eyes, noses. And some of those are bad news.”

“Would you profile on Mars if you had that problem?” Sue asked.

“Sure we would. Nobody enters Mars without an identity card and a sanity check, especially people from earth.”

“What would you do in Arizona?” Sue looked me straight in the eye.

“It’s a nice place. Dry and clean with remote places to land. Done it several times. I look like an Arizonan when I change and I have a US visa stamp in my passport. No problem. I’d do the same thing as they, profile like hell. What else can you do to stop those gate crashers?”

“They say on earth profiling is wrong, it’s racist.” Pete commented.

“So what?” I said. “A gate crasher is a gate crasher. We’d throw the bums out and let them float back into space. And if I know how most of them look, I’ll be looking for them hard and round them up if they can’t show their papers. What would you do at home? Invite them for dinner?”

“Everything is racist in America, or wherever in the world” Kathryn said.

“And those who cry racist are the worst,” Sue said.

“Here it started with the Indians,” Kathryn continued, “and it has only gotten worse. But look at Africa or Arabia, they are much worse than the USA.”

“Ever heard of the word PC?” Sue asked. “Politically correct; the synonym of hypocrisy and cowardice. Hate those people.”

“What would you do on Mars with all these different cultures?” Pete looked at me curiously.

“Multiculturalism’s what he means,” Kathryn explained.

“Oh, I don’t mind different cultures, colors, faces or languages,” I said. “We don’t have that on Mars and that makes our place a bit dull. Different music, art, dance and songs, I like to hear that when I’m here. It would be better if everyone stayed where they belong, but that has not happened for millions of years on this planet. But if you want to enter my territory, you need a valid identity card, or you get the hell out. That’s why I stand for Arizona, not the soft-pedaling US Government. What do they want, Babylon and a ruined bank account?”

“Do you agree, mom?” Sue asked.

“Who wouldn’t agree with the Mars Man?” Kathryn laughed.

“I do,” Sue said, “but I still need my hispanic Anita  to clean my apartment. No one else does, and surely not me.”

You won’t believe it, but I am on Facebook now. My profile picture shows me sitting on a horse on a high rock in Petra, Jordan. It was the only place where we could land on the way down from Mars via Moon. I found an Arabian horse wandering around and hopped on it to go down to the city, quite a steep descent and much harder to manage on a horse than going with my latest universe scooter from Mars to Earth. A shepherd caught me and took a picture. He had never seen a Mars man changing from his ET-costume into a human being. After some bargaining, he promised to e-mail the picture and to my surprise he did. Jordanians are nice people.

But down here in the USA, it goes from bad to worse. You guys are in deep doo-doo with this government. It’s the least transparent club I have ever seen. Behind the scenes, they work overtime to destroy your once vital systems. And then, suddenly, badoom-badoom! and they have concocted another multi-thousand page bill. You must give it to them: they are prolific law-writers. If I could just write novels like that.

 Again, I keep wondering where these people come from. They tell you that you are “un-American” if you don’t believe in them, but I have not seen such an un-American bunch like them before. They want to bring down your values and make it all look grey. Better to have everybody whine in misery than have some having fun and earning it and the others, too lazy to earn anything, whine because they can’t.

As a man from Mars, I do not understand their logic and your continued tolerance to put up with them. We are not as heavily populated as you are, but our differences are only a matter of degree and we would have thrown out bums like them a long time ago, if they had ever gotten in. That’s the point, we wouldn’t have let them in.

Their slogans are weird and have been full of contradiction and hypocrisy throughout history. The French Revolution started it with “Egalité, Fraternité et Liberté” (Equality, Brotherhood and Freedom). Sounds good, but the slogan is just one big contradiction. A misnomer. Was then, still is. Equality is a natural oxymoron. It can only be enforced by, yes, force. Brotherhood is full of strife, even in the best of families. That’s how you humans are. And freedom is wishful thinking, if that type of equality is the objective.

The USA became great because you let everybody be equal in their quest for freedom, happiness and economic good, not by forcing equality which stifles all initiative, inventivity and risk taking. Your current guys in the government are of a different kind. Their mantra is that nobody should be better off than the next poor unemployed smurfbrain who sits in front of the TV drinking  beer or has a government job. Keep everybody poor  and dumb so that they vote for this government because they are dependent on them. Heard that before? Well we did. Remember the USSR? Nazi Germany? None of that on Mars!

What am I going to do with my mixed kidzz that I am sharing with Mother Earth? Can’t send them to Europe either, as over there they are already down the drain. Take them to Mars? You imagine the culture shock? No French fries, cheeseburgers, pizzas or  Idol TV! Only ice-cold water (yes we have that in abundance, but you don’t know that – yet).

My ET friends and I are wondering how we could help you get rid of that bunch of miscreants. We have a nice resort on Mars, sort of a Reserve in a deep hole (yes, sorry, no French fries etc., but there are compensations: unobstructed view of Mother Earth). Impossible to get out of. Just offer them a tempting pack of (false) dollar bills and lure them into a few shuttles for a party and ship them off to Mars. NASA would know how to do that, and they would have a good reason, too. I’ll lead the way, just to save my kidzz. What a relief would that be.

Space travel can be cumbersome. We don’t get flat tires, but an overheated engine is not uncommon. Coming down from Mars, we had to find a temporary safe haven on the Moon to avoid burning up in smoke. The Moon is not a good place for spare parts, at least not yet. This brings me to the latest decision of your Obama Administration: cancel the moon trip.

It was a major disappointment for me. If someone like me needs a landing space on the way down or up to get an overhaul during the trip, the Moon was a logical step. But the O-Administration – as your media call it – overlooked that point all together. Now it seems that they want to use the tax money for more sophisticated weather stations instead, to monitor what’s happening in climategate. Meanwhile, I am stranded up there. Tough luck.

One thing is sure: the Moon is an ideal place to cool off, even for Mars people like me. It would also be a good place to send earthy hotheads to. Your president and his expert crisis people would do just fine there. Cooler heads would reign on earth.

 But for now, that’s wishful thinking. As a Mars man, I have been watching earth from my vantage point since last September and got more and more surprised. I never believed that there were people in the USA like the ones you have in your government now. In earlier comments, I already expressed my bewilderment where they came from. I always thought that communists, Marxists and America-haters were a small minority hiding in bushes or smoking stuff in dim-lit smelly discos. But for some reason, they got all out of the woodwork on that memorable Election Day and overcrowded your institutions. Yes, let’s fundamentally change America. What nerve. Every hard-won achievement will go to pot with these people; I can assure you this as a Mars man.

We finally got our engine fixed with tools we had on board. Took some innovative thinking. Tomorrow we are continuing our way back to Mother Earth. I have to look after my interests there. Some Mars kidzz that I share with Mother Earth. Can’t say it was a misalliance, and we did have some fun, but it’s been a life with mixed results. The kidzz are not happy with what’s going on. As it goes, they won’t have any money left when your Uncle Sam knocks on their door. For them, there’s no choice but seeking a tax shelter on Mars.

I told my friends on Earth in the 2008 election that people in government, congress and the white house do not seem to have ever studied economics 101. Why are these people considered so smart? Most of them are liberal arts students, having studied cooking, journalism and some law. Even their economists seem to have missed that basic book. They love to talk about “the good for the American People”. I never fully understand which American People they have in mind. It’s surely not all of them. But utopia sounds so nice. Unfortunately a stone does not zig zag down in its fall. It goes in a linear line. Zig zagging is all what socialists do. They are masters in it. But it’s a sure way to crash if you disregard the economic laws. They are invisible but they do exist. Sadly, they only manifest themselves when it’s too late: bankruptcy is usually the suicidal end. This is where the old USA is heading.

 It’s sad to see that the great USA is being pummeled this way. I hope the tea party people get their act together and throw the bums out. We now know what they are up to as never before.

And I am still vouching for my Moon stopover with a service station. We need people in your government that have some common sense!

See you soon on Capitol Hill.