[Newspoetry] politics of grammar...

[Ranjan Banerji]

>BREAKING NEWS from CNN.com
>
>-- The West Bank city of Ramallah was hit by fire from Israeli helicopter 
>gunships, Israel TV reports.
>
>For complete coverage of this story visit:
>http://www.CNN.com

Jerusalem (NPN) -- Tragedy struck in Palestine today, as the city of 
Ramallah recovers from its accidental injury from rockets and other live 
munitions fired from Israeli helicopter gunships firing at an random patch 
of earth -- chosen specifically for its visible lack of Israelis -- a patch 
of earth unfortunately also occupied by the largely Palestinian city.

"We were just here, as we have been every day, minding our own business, 
occasionally complaining about the fact that the Israelis are becoming 
particularly annoying about not wanting us here, when BOOM!"  Sheikh Ali 
bin Deredundat is still surprised.  "It's getting so it's not safe to be a 
Palestinian city in contested Israeli territory when hawks have overrun the 
Knesset anymore."

Israeli officials were quick to point out that they did not fire *at* the 
city, but rather that in the innocent and harmless act of firing live 
rounds at unarmed Palestinians, the city of Ramallah was tragically caught 
in the crossfire.  "We have no control over these things; we were simply 
polishing the helicopters, and they went off," says a highly-placed Israeli 
Defense Force official.  "Ah, such is the cruel and chaotic calculus of our 
meaningless pitiful lives.  Of course, we would be remiss not to point out 
that this senseless violence would not have happened if only Ramallah had 
not been built where it is, but then when one polishes helicopter gunships, 
accidents can happen."

Jewish settlements are by design impervious to the lethal whimsy of the 
helicopter-borne Stinger and Hellfire missile systems.  The helicopter 
gunships are usually only used for parades and to carry advertising banners 
over festivals.  Common slogans for these banners include "BUY ISRAELI" and 
"PALESTINIANS GO HO...WELL, JUST GO SOMEWHERE."


---
"want to be the hunter again            Ranjan Banerji
want to see the world alone again       Luminary, Sage, and
to take a chance on life again" Thinking Person
                         -Dido           rbanerji at pobox.com