67 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
67 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(word processor parameters LM=8, RM=75, TM=2, BM=2)
|
|
Taken from KeelyNet BBS (214) 324-3501
|
|
Sponsored by Vangard Sciences
|
|
PO BOX 1031
|
|
Mesquite, TX 75150
|
|
|
|
March 14, 1991
|
|
|
|
MOTHEROF.ASC
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
Saddam's words hit the Motherlode
|
|
by Patrick Ercolano
|
|
The Baltimore Evening Sun
|
|
|
|
While the leaders of the anti-Iraq coalition discuss a postwar
|
|
agenda, one permanent fixture of the New World Order already has
|
|
been set. It is a metaphor. The mother of all metaphors.
|
|
|
|
The metaphor is, "The mother of all...."
|
|
|
|
Saddam Hussein - remember him? - first brought it to our attention
|
|
before the Persian Gulf War when he predicted that Iraq and the
|
|
coalition would clash in "the mother of all battles."
|
|
|
|
This was the start of the singularly gruseome poetry of Iraqi
|
|
threats made before and during the fighting.
|
|
|
|
I recall driving home one night early in the war and hearing an
|
|
Iraqi statement on the car radio, something about how the coalition
|
|
forces would become food for jackals. Or maybe it was buzzards.
|
|
Whatever, it had a lot more pizzaz than anyting our military
|
|
briefers were saying. You have to hand one thing to Hussein and his
|
|
gang: They may not have been military whizbangs, but they could dish
|
|
out the scary rhetoric with the best of them.
|
|
|
|
Even U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney borrowed the metaphor
|
|
when he sneeringly called the fall-back of Iraqi forces "the mother
|
|
of all retreats."
|
|
|
|
Then there was the recent news report of a huge fireball being
|
|
sighted over a northeastern U.S. and labeled by a pilot in
|
|
Pennsylvania "the mother of all meteors." And a returning Desert
|
|
Strom soldier reportedly yelled, "The mother of all parties is about
|
|
to begin."
|
|
|
|
Well, why not? Once you find a good, meaty metaphor, you can't help
|
|
but sink your teeth into it. For instance, when a torrential
|
|
downpour comes this summer, we can call it "the mother of all
|
|
rainstorms."
|
|
|
|
Or if Jim Palmer had made the Orioles' starting rotation, we could
|
|
have talked about "the mother of all comebacks."
|
|
|
|
Or when some clergyman wins the Priest of the Year Award, we can
|
|
hail him as "the mother of all Fathers."
|
|
|
|
The possibilities are limitless. Make up your own "mother-of-
|
|
all..." phrases. Swap them and trade 'em with your friends.
|
|
|
|
It's the mother of all fun...
|
|
|
|
|