Mars Man was absent from TV because of universe assignments and family events but had a few interesting interviews with some brilliant people on Planet Earth.

The first one was a well-known environmentalist. Mars Man met him at the gasoline pump filling up his three dimensional SUV. He was smiling broadly.

“Hi,” I said, “Aren’t you Mr. Reid? “

“Yes, how do you know!” he said, relishing in his fame.

“Your face is all over the papers, inescapable. Why are you looking so happy?”

“I’m paying five dollars per gallon for my gas. We made it! Shows our policies work. Obama is great!”

“You know that everything else that uses oil, chemicals, fertilizer, tractors cutting grain, plastics, you name it will be more expensive too? What about the little guys Obama is so fond of? How are they going to work and buy their groceries?”

“Public transport, don’t you know? High speed rail, all that’s in his budget.”

“What about industries that must pay higher fuel prices; they won’t have money to hire more people, crushing your economic recovery.”

“Obama has roads to build, bridges to repair, kids to educate, he’ll hire them, all in the budget.”

“Who’s going to pay for all that?”

“You, of course, your patriotic duty.”

“You got the money for all that gas?”

The price tag showed seventy five dollars. The Shell voice was saying “thank  you, please come again”.

“My stellar salary is paid by Obama, my stellar pension is paid by Obama, my stellar healthcare is paid by Obama, Obama is great.”

“Does he pay that himself?”

“No of course not, bum, it’s you. You pay for the government. Your patriotic duty. I work for the government, my patriotic duty. Yes we can! Excuse me, my tank’s full, good day.”

* * *

Turning the corner on a New York street, I bumped into a man with a bushy black beard, a multi-colored woolen cap on his head and dressed in a long wobbly white robe. From what I observed, this was clearly a man wanting to publicly express his Islamic culture.

“Sorry,” I said, “didn’t see you coming.”

“Salam aleikum, Allahu Akbar,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked in plain American.

“Allah is great!”

“I thought Obama was great.”

“Obama is our brother, he bows to Islam.”

“Does he? I thought he said he was Christian.”

“That’s for politics only, my friend, to fool the infidels. Have you ever seen him going to your church? Soon our Islamic flag will fly on top of the White House. We’ve already offered him the pole . We’re working on the flag.”

“Why do you think Americans would like that?”

“Americans would love our fashion, especially women. We have beautiful burkas and stylish black robes. They’ll love to be hulled in mystery. Besides, they are great against the cold. Wouldn’t you be excited at night to take all that stuff off and discover her beauty that only you can see? Just wait!”

“What else enticing do you have to offer?”

“Our sharia law. It’s wonderful, just how the prophet Mohammed lived. May peace be upon him.”

“But Americans have their bible, just how their prophet Jesus lived.”

“Mohammed is the last prophet, all before’s superseded.”

“But your law dictates stoning for adultery, cutting off hands for thievery, beheading of infidels, don’t you think that’s overdoing it a bit?”

“Wouldn’t you think that would be a good clean-up of all the mess your liberal society has created? Just look at your dismal TV.”

“Oh well, I remember your friends from a Middle Eastern country I won’t name rented the top floor of the hotel where I stayed and had ladies of pleasure bussed in for the night.”

“That’s allowed because they were abroad.”

“So the Koran only applies to the national soil? Our bible’s ten commandments apply world-wide.”

“We want to broaden that national soil to the whole world, so that won’t happen anywhere. The international caliphate. That’s the purpose of our Middle East revolution, don’t be fooled. Back to the future.”

“It sounds more like back to the past.”

“You don’t understand. Cordoba is the way to go. It was the jewel of the world in the tenth century before the infidels destroyed it. It had a library with a million books, three thousand mosques, and three hundred public baths. It will be restored. America was not even on the map then. Even the Chinese will find out.”

“They’ll want to sell you their plumbing ware and try to buy you out. You’ll have your work cut out for you.”

“Allah is with us, sir. Yes we can! Salam.” And he dissapeared into the crowd.

* * *

I sat in a barbershop in Washington D.C., the most democratic city in the USA. They don’t even need voting rights in Congress. But they display the largest number of crack potholes and are proud of it.

“What do you think of Wisconsin?” my barber asked.

“You mean those riots in their State building?”

“Yes, of course, do you think that could happen here?”

“Just wait till they shut down the Government, and those pimps will be all over the floor,” I opined.

“I employ six people here, pay their health care, pay into their 401 K, and more, have to pay rent and utilities, and those public sector nitwits want us to pay even more for their f…. benefits. Crazy.”

“That’s our rights, we fought for them,” said a black bearded client sitting on my right, overhearing our conversation.

“You mean you paid for those guys you elected, and then those guys voted for all your benefits in return,” my barber said, a bit too loud, swaying his scissors in front of me giving me the jitters. “And the poor taxpayer pays.”

“The majority counts,” the client retorted.

“Hah! And when the other majority counts, you walk out. Bull…,” my barber said, bristling, resuming his job on my skull.

“You’re nothing but a bunch of rotten socialists,” the client on my left butted in. “You don’t give a damn if a State’s broke and goes belly up. You think Obama will pay anyway, with my money.”

“Yes, that’s what he said during his campaign. He’ll walk with us, not with you.”

“So what about America? Don’t you care if they go broke?” my barber asked, shaking his scissors wildly towards the Capitol.

“We’re international,” the client now identified as the socialist said. “We have brothers all over the world, Russia, Middle-East, France, you name it. We don’t need America. We don’t need countries. Workers unite the world over. We’ll create a new world order soon.”

“Of workers?” scoffed my barber. “What you work for? You teaching? My kids don’t learn anything at my public school except selling drugs. My wife does their homework and they don’t even say thanks.”

“Silly class war fare,” the fellow on my left said. “You guys don’t know you get suckered by your own bosses? You pay them your union dues and they live in palaces with hookers sliding in on the conveyor band.”

“I work for the Energy Department,” the socialist said haughtily, answering my barber. “You better respect that.”

“You must be kidding,” the barber exploded, “with 5 dollars a gallon of Middle East gas, while we have billions of barrels under the ground in the USA that your type don’t want to give permits for? Respect? Go fishing…”

“Soon we’ll have wind farms all over, even off-shore. We won’t need that stinky oil anymore.”

“Off-shore?” the fellow on my left said, laughing. “So what’s the difference between off-shore oil rigs that you are opposing, and those bulky wind farms that aren’t producing a quarter as much? Looks any better?”

“At least they don’t leak, killing the fish and spoiling my beach.”

“Wind farms kill your precious birds.”

“Thanks,” I said to the barber, “better get out of here before they start fighting with me in the middle…”

* * *

I was having a beer in a bar off Time Square when a Chinese looking man in a dark business suit climbed on a stool on my right. He ordered a beer too.

“You from China?” I asked, looking for company.

His eyes narrowed and stared at me coolly.

“You profiling me?”

“Well, you don’t quite look like a Norwegian blonde.”

“You racist, eh?” and he took a sip of his beer. “Let me tell you something. I’m here on a business trip to buy the Empire State Building.”

He spoke surprisingly good English.

“No kidding! What are you going to do with it? A lot of cleaning to do…”

“We’ll move part of our Government here. America will soon be a Chinese province. We’ve already a few Chinese towns here, as you well know. China Towns.”

“What will happen to Washington then?”

“We’ll just close the White House because they haven’t been paying their rent. People in Congress will get a choice to work for us or stay broke.”

“You mean war? Bring in an Armada all the way from China?”

“No, no fighting necessary. Our President will come here on State visit and present Obama the bill. Obama will say “I don’t have the money to pay you back unless I can borrow it from you.” Then we’ll foreclose on the White House and send Obama packing. Most Americans don’t think much of him anyway.”

“You think the American army will let that happen?”

“They’ll be glad to be under our command. Free Chinese food. They love that. And we’ve had so many comforting exchanges with them in Beijing. We’ve discussed this already. Not to worry.”

“But how can you carry that out?”

“Americans will do it for us. Close your banks, throw out your dollar and change it to the Yuan, take the gold of Fort Knox to compensate for our losses on your Treasuries. Our American collaborators will want to preserve whatever cash they can keep.”

“But Americans will be poor and can’t buy Chinese goods.”

“We don’t need the American market anymore to make money. Our own market of 2 billion people is large enough and has good per capita income now. Americans will work for us.”

“My goodness, that’s quite a change. What about their free speech?”

“We’ll curtail that. Besides, you must admit, it was getting a bit out of control anyway, don’t you think?”

“No more marches on the Mall in D.C. or on the Capitol?”

“Only in honor of our President. We’ll turn the Capitol into a Wax Museum. Actually, the current Congress could just as well stay there and be waxed for life. Wouldn’t make any difference.”

“What with the Tea Party?”

“Chinese tea will take care of them.”

“What about the American language?”

“Pigeon English would be just fine as a local dialect. Most Americans don’t speak or write any better. For those seeking careers, Mandarin Chinese is compulsory. That starts at kindergarten.”

The man from China took a second beer, so did I.

“What about their Founding Fathers?” I asked.

“Your democratic leaders tell me they never existed; it’s a fable pushed by your extreme right. Confucius will be good enough. He was there a lot earlier, even before Methusalem, and that’s old. There’s enough confusion already.”

“But Americans are a religious people; they want to keep their churches.”

“Marx said religion is opium for the people. Opium is bad. So religion is bad. Many Americans such as the ACLU agree. We don’t encourage it in China, so we won’t encourage it here. Churches will be used to preach the greatness of modern times China. ”

“The Muslims will be happy to see the infidels dismantled. But what are you going to do with them?”

“We’ll ship them back to Saudi Arabia with willing virgins, for free, using your luxury cruise ships. We bought up all their oil with gold and have good relationships. No use trying to modernize them, they’re locked up in the past. Just as well.”

“When’s all this going to start?”

“It’s already started. China owns Walmart, if you don’t know. Your main financiers own Chinese stocks and are speculating against the dollar. They know more than you do. Your National Security Advisor thinks we are your biggest nuclear threat. No worry. Tomorrow we’ll walk into the White House with a box containing a reset button. Your Hillary tried that with Russia, but ours works. If Obama doubts, we’ll tell him we’ll just hit the red button and he’ll cave. If anything, he’s good at caving. I must go know, must pack the box. You want to have the rest of my beer?”

“No, thanks…..”

I got up too. Better phone Kathryn, Pete and Sue and get the hell out of here back to Mars.