Where am I?

Holy moley! -- has some parallel universe opened up a leak somewhere?

Yesterday, the wife of Clarence Thomas, the wife who is a visable face of the Tea Party matrons, called Anita Hill's office at 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday to leave a message (at that date, time, and place she could hardly be expecting to have a conversation with Ms. (or is it Dr.?) Hill.  The content of the message was a cheery hi, how are ya?  You should apologize to my husband."

In her words, this was extending an Olive Branch.

As confused as the TeaPartiers are with facts, perhaps Mrs. Thomas confused a hickory stick with an olive branch?  She sees herself as the dove of peace, perhaps??

This weird feeling that a parallel universe has opened up is nothing new, and it began for me with the 1968 DNC, just watching it on tv, drawing, and taking it in.  Suddenly I saw scenes that looked like European WWII videos and kept asking my friend, "What is this? Where is this? What happened?" thinking it was a breaking newsflash from around the world.

Television followed with another surreal broadcast of toorahrah, "Watergate," asking then, "Well what all is this about anyway?" and then there was Martha Mitchell, Cassandra, reduced to banging on doors to make her voice heard while being labeled an alcoholic lunatic street person, this former wife of the Attorney General, John Mitchell.  Her cries went not only unheeded but mocked publicly; she continued to fight for what she knew was right, and what history has revealed to have been correct all along -- "history" being "the media" I suppose.

Then Ollie North and what was all that about, followed by an election and Ronald of Orange suddenly became president, more suddenly the hostages were released.  It was a HUGE arms trade, politically ensnared with the US in more ways than one might suspect -- ways that would appear to be delusional ravings, things so weird and far-fetched, that is, in contrast to what we have been educated to believe, that the truth, like Martha Mitchell's, seems an impossibility.

Those exist in the vaccuum created ten-twenty years earlier with the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, these swirling conspiracies.

Enter television again broadcasting another "What is this?  What am I seeing?  What is going on?" with the Clarence Thomas hearings, leaving us all puzzled for years, sweeping it behind us as another, "I don't knowww. . . ."