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In a not-so-simple twissssst of fate, the Republican Party and major corporations have joined a mythicky battle over the naming of hurricanes in 2006. Ironically, it would mean the elimination of individual (rugged?) names to identify the late summer and fall big blows. 

It all took off when the U.S. Weather Bureau received a Christmas cash transfer of $100,000 from American Airlines suggesting that next season’s first Atlantic storm be named for the already airborne company. Said a very wet AA flack: “We’d get running mention on every news report. Marketing is working on additional thrusts.” 

When the word got out, and the check had been cashed, other multi-nationals—led by the fleur de oilys from Chevron to Valero—sent their lobbyists flocking to the halls of Congress. This resulted in HR 666 being put into motion, stating that all corporations were welcome to enter the fray—and a total of $3 billion came into play by year’s end.  

The struggle then got complex when all-the-rage, off-the-wall Republican politicians proposed the leaders of the GOP be so “spun in the sky.” Leading the list was the infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff, followed by Bush and Cheney. . .  

A veering moderate faction of the party balked, saying it wanted the hurricanes to be named after 2006 congressional candidates whose campaigns were in jeopardy. Following six years of Republican rape and pillage, such politicos could use all the publicity available, they cried. Consequently, the three groups began fighting amongst themselves, much to the bemusement of the Democrats, who didn’t know what to do. 

However, there were young (Gen Y’erd) Aderall (a latest drug of choice, composed of four time-released methamphetamines—a.k.a. as the “Fantastic Four”) sucking corporate liberals who saw this as an opportunity to shift the agenda by proposing a national lottery in which the people could select a hurricane name from party candidates—ranging from Democratic to Green to Peace & Freedom. . . This democratic process grabbed the excitement of the ever losing left, progressives, whoever, particularly when it was agreed that for $20, folks could get to pick 26 names, from A-Z.  

Democrats filibustered in the House in an attempt to stall the inevitable, even as lottery bucks dribbled into party coffers. At which point, the GOP announced that the dollar be abandoned, and replaced with something called the Reagan Rand, named for Ronald Reagan and arch-conservative icon Ayn Rand. 

Following a watershed year in which hurricanes reached beyond the alphabet into the 30s, 2006 looks like it could find stepped-up manmade global warming mixing even more with the casino economy. This development may even bring back and forward from a previous tempestuous time NomadiKoran chanting Weathermensch, as well as, say, Wobbudhists, Navahopis, Quechecwelch, Ukrainiancestors, Clintonian Croasians, EUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU U.S. isolationist teeny boppers. . .  

Armin A. Legdon, aka Arnie Passman, is a writer, cultural undertaker and executioner living in the prevailing corrosive winds in west central Berkeley.