Three minute fiction: Who do you look like?

A very short story ....

"Did anyone ever tell you you look  like George Clooney?" she asked.
I had two reactions to that question.
The first was that this was a preposterous statement. I look in the mirror every day. I had looked in the mirror almost every day of my life. I know what I look like, and I know what George Clooney looks like, and neither of us would ever be confused for the other, not on my best day and George Clooney's worst.  I knew I was not the kind of guy with classic movie star looks, the kind of guy that walked into a room and every one, woman and man alike, couldn't help but look at.
And yet, down deep somewhere, I caught myself thinking, "what if I do somehow look like George Clooney?" I mean, it wasn't like she asked me if anyone had ever told me I looked like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise or one of those guys who don't look real, who look like they weren't born but rather drawn into life, in the image of some artists' lofty ideal of what a woman really wants a man to look like.
What if I was really better looking than I thought? What if all of us are? I mean, I had just watched this interview with Rick Springfield, the musician and actor who was a daytime soap opera heart throb and moderately successful musician ("Jessie's Girl"). He was sitting there, 60 years old, and could still pass for mid-30s, and he was saying how he never felt he was good looking, that he couldn't talk to girls and the only reason he began playing music was because it caused girls to come to him and he didn't have to initate conversation. He was that insecure about himself and his looks and even after miles on the road with different girls every night and now 30 years of being happily married to the same woman, he was still basically insecure.
Maybe that's how it is. Maybe we can't really see ourselves because when we look in the mirror we're so caught up in seeing the individual flaws that we can't get a true picture of the whole package. If it could be that way with Rick Springfield, why not me?
Could it be that I really did have some quality that I just couldn't see? I couldn't see any resemblance to George Clooney, but then, George Clooney has that kind of guy-next-door, everyman kind of look about him as opposed to the plastic perfection of those guys who are just so perfect it almost hurts to look at them.
Maybe she saw something in me that I didn't.
Maybe ...
"No," I answered. "I've never heard that."
She smiled.
"I didn't think so,'' she said. "Because you don't look anything like him."
And with that, she turned and walked off into the night.
Perhaps she went off looking for someone who really did look like George Clooney.
But I had this sneaking feeling she was just looking for somebody that didn't look like me.

Why are Egyptians protesting in English? Because they know we're watching

It hit me while watching the protests/riots going on in Egypt: the smartest way to overthrow a government is recruit college kids. It's smart, because college kids are at that age when they believe they are immortal.
They believe they can change the world.
They are always looking for a cause.
And when the cause also involves missing classes ... so much the better.
So you put thousands of college kids on the street, protesting the government. They are young, and everyone likes youth. They are articulate.
And they're smart enough to write signs in English, which makes for good TV in America.
Don't think for a minute that what is going on in Egypt is not ultimately aimed at America. Why else would there be so many non-Egyptian signs? They know the news networks will be watching, and the American people will be reading.
No matter what they want us to believe they are protesting - no matter what government they might actually be overthrowing - it's always aimed back here, to the USA.
Kind of like how in all those war movies, the bad guys - whether Germans in World War II, Russians in the Cold War epics, or even Japaneese - always speak English. They know that's the audience they have to reach to be successful.
But the absolute best reason to use college kids?
Eventually, they go back to school.
Of course, when they leave, what they leave behind is a power vacuum, and a terrified population that is afraid to venture out, which is a perfect opportunity for extremists to jump in and take over.
That was America in the 1960s, of course: college kids out there trying to change the world - while hooking up and getting out of class at the same time. What could possibly be a better combination for 18-22 year olds?
But seriously ... when all this trouble in Egypt is over, the voices in the street will go back to class, oblivious to what they left behind, and what will fill the vacuum will be the power that is bold enough to step in, convinced that it knows better than the masses what the masses "need."
And what the masses don't need is a democracy -- it makes tyranny so unmanageable.
You have to hand it to Muslims: when they're unhappy, they let you know. Loudly.
The only thing like it in American society is those people who get rejected by American Idol. You know, the ones that leave screaming threats and flinging curses and threatening the cameraman with obscene hand gestures.
What if, instead of "golden tickets to Hollywood,'' we gave the rejects little signs written in Arabic, containing some kind of anti-Iranian or anti-Hezbollah or anti-Hamas or anti-Chavez signs (wait; does Hugo Chavez read Arabic?).
 They could wave them around as they leave, cursing and screaming, and people in Lybia or whereever wouldn't know any better. They'd think the youth of America had finally come alive, were mad as heck and aren't going to take it anymore.
If that wouldn't make terrorists think twice about messing with America, I don't know what would.