The Opinuary Column



The Opinion "Freedom isn't free" has died after a brief illness, owing in large part to its inability to pay for badly needed medical treatment. Having spent its early years being invoked to shut up dirty fucking hippies, its later years degraded into increasingly violent confrontations with health insurance companies and their motto "Health Care Isn't Free, It Isn't Even Health Care." With no more Free Time on its hands, it joined the ranks of the approximately 45,000 Americans who die every year because, well, you already know why.

Born during the era of The Vietnam War Isn't Free it was viewed as a comforting remonstration against anyone who ever pussifyingly questioned the rightness of our nation's bloody habit of killing brown people in far away lands. After returning to civilian life it suffered from a variety of ailments, many believed to be a result of traumatic head injuries suffered in bombastic verbal combat. Never exactly sure why Freedom wasn't Free, nor able to say just how much would have been a fair, going-rate price for Freedom, it mostly shook its fist at traffic and listened to Agitated Merakin (AM) Radio.

Having married its childhood sweetheart (Sex Isn't Free) only to discover its mate wanted to keep its night job, it sought a divorce (that wasn't Free) and lived out the rest of its years as a Free Spirit. Not. It fought its addiction to Crystal Meth (Cheaper Than Coke But Still Not Free) and Tobacco (the first carton for soldiers was Free, but after that, not so much) with grit and determination, which it had in buckets (buckets that were Free but had to be returned when it was done with them).

In the weeks before its death, the Opinion was often observed meditating on a litany of uncomfortable realizations: it had discovered that its apartment wasn't Free, its bar tab wasn't Free, its groceries weren't Free and, having failed to appear in court on misdemeanor charges, it suffered the additonal ignominy of facing the fact that indeed, not even its DUI was Free ($250.00 just to post bail!). Its only words to the judge were these: "In the bastardized yet immortal phrasings of Kris Kristofferson: Freedom's just another word for something that isn't free..."

Family of the deceased Opinion are asking that, in lieu of flowers (which aren't free) that each and every one of us do our part to dismantle the Military Industrial Complex until all that's left is a small, fossilized pile of Dick Cheney's draft deferments, which will be placed in a museum where tickets will be sold if you want to get in. War isn't Free, ya' know!

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The Opinuary Column usually appears (for free!) Friday afternoons at Jesus' General--this pre-Friday noon posting is the exception that proves the rule. Heh.

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