The Great Derangement - Matt Taibbi [71]
Cassie opened her eyes when she was done with her little speech and cast a glance at everyone in the room. Dutifully everyone in the group whispered the usual praise, but I detected the energy seeping out of the house. We were here to talk about our own problems, not Iran. And once Cassie was finished with her grim corporate duty—and that’s so obviously what her anti-Iran prayer was that I don’t doubt that even some of the other group members noticed it—the group went back to more usual prayer requests.
“Father, pray for so-and-so, who’s in the hospital.”
“Lord, I ask you to lift up my daughter, who’s running with the wrong crowd.”
“Father, guide me and protect me financially.”
Cassie glanced at me in the midst of all of this. I realized that I hadn’t prayed for anything. Not knowing what to do or say, I stepped forward.
“Lord,” I said, “I’d like to say a prayer for my little cousin Katie, who’s, uh, just now entering college…”
An alarm went off in my head. Just entering college? You idiot—it’s February!
“…who’s just entering college a semester late,” I continued. “Little Katie, dear Father, she calls herself an atheist now, and I ask you, dear Father, to lift her up and wash her in the blood of your only son, Jesus Christ, so that she may be healed of her addiction to drugs and inhalants, glues and such.”
A woman off to the right of me stepped forward, like she wanted to say a new prayer. I cut her off.
“So, Father, I please ask that you cure my little cousin Katie of those addictions and lift her up so that she may return to school and resume a normal life and go back to studying again, and playing musical instruments…”
The crowd stared at me anxiously. I gulped.
“In particular the xylophone,” I added finally.
There was an awkward pause. I took a deep breath and braced myself. Then the verdict came:
“Lord, protect this young lady!” whispered one man finally.
“Bind those demons inside her and cast them out!” said another.
“Save her, Lord!” said another.
EIGHT
Conspiracy Interlude I,
or
9/11 and the Derangement of Truth
EARLY ON THE MORNING of October 4, 2006, a friend of mine called, waking me up. When I hit the answer button on my cell, I could already hear him laughing.
“Dude,” he stammered out, “you’re being picketed!”
“What?”
“I just sent you the link,” he said. “It’s hilarious. The 9/11 protesters are picketing your office.”
I crawled out of bed and slid into my desk chair, opened the link. It was an entry from the Official Loose Change Blog, and it read as follows:
Edit: Just got this in from Luke…apparantly this article by Rolling Stone might be the catalyst for some blowback…
Peaceful Picket @ Rolling Stone!
Protest Magazine’s 9/11 Cover-Up!
Wednesday, October 4th, 4–6pm
1290 Avenue of the Americas (52nd St.)
Recently, Rolling Stone Magazine featured yet another of those uninformed, smarmy, know-it-all, “hit pieces” directed against our 9/11 Truth Movement. Appearing on its website and authored by Matt Taibbi, the article utilizes the usual mis-characterizations of our collective effort towards the truth of 9/11. What is intolerable though is that the writer stoops to personal attacks against those of us who doubt the official story of 9/11. Well, sorry establishment pseudo-hipsters, there are millions of us and we’re not standing for it! We demand respect, if not for our sincere efforts, than [sic] for the truth of what happened that day. We’ll see you in the street!
QUESTION AUTHORITY!
JUST GIVE US SOME 9/11 TRUTH!
“How would you rate the American media in their coverage of the events of the attack last September?”
“Well let’s see, uh, shamefully, is a word that comes to mind,” answered Hunter S. Thompson, Rolling Stone’s best and most famous writer when speaking with Australian radio back in 2002.
Posted by Dylan Avery at 2:05 p.m.