Every time I look up from what I'm doing, another Republican is charging off into some self-made fray, seated backwards, on a mechanical pony -- the kind bolted to the floor, requiring a quarter to rock back and forth -- shouting incoherently, trying to make the metal animal charge faster, trying to make it back up, all the way.

The screeching and screeds are usually about mandating religion in the schools and some neo-creationist harangue, or else revising the history books to show how wonderful and not-at-all demented they themselves are, or about GOP men's rights to dictating vaginal probes into women's vaginas and their God-given rights in specifying women's health care, or else it's some frothy meringue regarding how the non-job-creating but-still-so-called "job creators," corporations and the rich, should be spared paying any taxes as their forbears once gladly did.

It is difficult to know where to start, to know where the most appropriate jumping-off place might be.  Instead, we will simply stand up, move to the popped-open door, gauge the height off the ground as being good enough, hook up the static line, check ourselves and the package, and just jump -- parachuting in with some stray facts and thoughts, ammo that will come in handy in the incessant political wars.

The pallets of ammo were too big to send in this trip, but the treasure-map directions to get to these word-artists' palettes are safe, they are right here, good as gold.  Meanwhile, not to worry, the enemy will never find the secret stash -- facts, truth, and logic -- as they've been overlooking them for decades, right under their noses, if they'd cared to look.  All this time, we figured we'd just not yet stumbled on the secret code or right sequence of facts to unlock their arm-linked, lock-stepped, right-wing minds.

Our dear friend Reaper has been by, testing the limits, if any, of our deep, highly personal, and intimate relationship -- keeping an eye peeled to see if we will flinch, spook, or be thrown: More atrocities arriving in Afghanistan, as you know, more fallout from our going gunning-around in the world, eager to carve more notches in our gunbelts, always set to cowboy-up, war-whoop into this rodeo's lineup.  True, our Grange Hall dance card of death is all full up, from all our usual and growing carnage abroad:  We're dancing as fast as we can.

Something inside snaps. Then, dying time begins: men, women, kids, all ghastly.  Corpses get grimly abused, set on fire.  Body parts get saved as grisly souvenirs. Same old ghost stories.  Burn a holy book or three, keep the place and its people gasping. This is Reaper's Magical Mystery Tour! The soldier this time in the center, atop a momentary, personal pentagram of examination and crucible of soul-testing, had already been on three tours with Reaper Magical Mystery Tour Services, in Iraq.  How many rides, how many tours is enough?

If you have not yet adjusted your clocks to Daylight Savings Time, from being out partying, or just plain forgot:  Greetings!  We are from your future!  We come in peace!  And, may we say, how remarkably lifelike you look for this hour!

On the other hand, if you already have your clocks all synched up, you already know that no one here has jet cars as yet, no street-corner teleportation chambers to Mars Base 179, and no take-charge robo-maids whirring around chasing Elroys or Astros, no aprons trailing behind, no doilies askew atop metallic heads.  Sorry, it's not that kind of future -- we'd need a longer head start than an hour for that.  Still, there's no reason to feel counted out or killed by the clock -- although, we shouldn't expect much from Daylight Savings Time, as there are no places for saving up daylight in time vaults, no Sunshine Savings & Loans as yet.