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Thursday, November 11, 2004

Arafat Est Décédé

It doesn’t matter who you are. You could have been a revolutionary leader your entire life, complete with camouflage headdress and a pistol on your belt. You could have led a life completely devoid of levity; you could have spent every waking moment committed to your cause. You may have sent men to do battle and ordered the death of innocent women and children. Who cares if you were the one that put your struggle at the front of the world’s stage because in death we are all stripped of any dignity we may have still been preserving and rendered into feed for the world’s humor mill.

History will be the judge of Yassir Arafat but that won’t stop all of us from putting in our opinions. I loved the part where after a few days of speculation concerning the PLO leader’s health, a French military official gave this brief statement to the world press, “Monsieur Arafat n’est pas décédé.” The news of his demise wasn’t greatly exaggerated but no matter what you think of the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, I think that if before I die someone announces publicly that I am not dead then I would have to say that my life was a success.

Perhaps it is Arafat who laughs last. After all, even if I, as a humor essayist, reach Arafat’s stature, I doubt that upon hearing of my demise readers of Leftbanker will shoot AK47’s into the air or burn tires. My greatest hope is to live long enough so that when I enter into the void people will simply ask, “I thought he died years ago.” Most people will probably just say, “Left who banker?” Life is hard, death is cruel and, according to my sources, this is all we got.

People cling to religion with the hope that faith will allow them to side-step the absurdity of dying. Sorry folks, religion isn’t going to shield you from the indignities of death. One of the most religious men the world has ever known, the Ayatollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of the Iranian revolution, had tens of thousands of mourners at his funeral. As Khomeini was carried to his final resting spot men fighting to be near the deceased cleric knocked over the pall bearers and the body landed on the ground. For this I should lead a life of piety? The Pope has been dead for years, yet the Cardinals in Rome keep doing this horrible Weekend at Bernie’s thing with him, so if you think religion will give you some dignity at the hour of death you’d better think again.

I’m always afraid that I will die unexpectedly, without time to sanitize my life. I’m afraid I will be struck down and someone will find the music for Titanic prominently displayed on my piano. I want people to see that I was working on a Bach prelude or a Chopin mazurka right before I checked out. I want time to take out my garbage which is filled with empty vodka bottles. And yes mother, I always wear clean underwear. I hope Arafat had time to delete all of the naked pictures of Britney Spears off his computer before he left this earth.

Perhaps someone could start a business called Death With Dignity. Subscribers to this service would have a chip implanted in their bodies and at the moment of death the people from Death With Dignity would launch into action. They would locate your corpse and make sure that you don’t look ridiculous while another member of their team is dispatched to your living quarters to sanitize your apartment, removing any embarrassing objects and cleaning the place up so others don’t see that you were living like an animal. It is one thing to live like a slob but when company comes over you have to straighten up a little.

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