To Senator John Kerry: You sounded very Presidential this morning. It was refreshing to hear *somebody* sounding that way.
To George W. Bush: Now is your chance to show that there's some timy shred of sincerity behind all your "United We Stand" talk. I'm willing to give you one more chance to prove it. Go ahead, surprise me.
To U.S. citizens 18-25: This was supposed to be the Scooby Doo election: "I would have gotten away with it, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!" But you never showed up. I guess you're just a bunch of worthless slackers after all.
To all of you: I really do think that we could start acting like a united country again, even with this President and this Congress. And I think it would be a good idea. Really and truly.
6 comments:
john, you've got it right. let's hope that bush can rise to the occasion and prove us wrong.
Well, I'm not hopeful. Why should he suddenly start behaving well now, when behaving badly has worked so well? If we could retroactively subtract the same number of Republican votes that were proactively subtracted by destroying registrations prior to the election, I'd be a little more comfortable.
But, this too shall pass. I find myself peculiarly comforted by the fact that the song I find most appropriate to the occasion was written by a man who died 30 years ago and never heard of any of this. I transcribed this off my CD of *Down the Highway* this morning, and it sounds as though it had never been written before. And yet - we have made some progress. A lot of it was sideways, but hey, we take what we can get. Cue the acoustic guitar and don't forget these words are copyrighted so pass them on only with credit:
Which way are you going? Which side will you be on?
Will you stand and watch while all the seeds of hate are sown?
Will you stand with those who say "Let his will be done,"
One hand on the Bible, one hand on the gun?
One hand on the Bible, one hand on the gun?
Which way are you looking? Is it hard to see?
Do you say: "What's wrong for him is not wrong for me?"
You walk the streets of righteousness but you refuse to understand.
You say you love the baby, then you crucify the man.
You say you love the baby, then you crucify the man.
Every day, things are changing,
Words once honored turned to lies.
People wondering - can you blame them?
It's too far to run and too late to hide.
So now you turn your back on all the things that you used to preach.
Now it's "they can live in freedom if they live like me."
Well your life has changed. Confusion reigns. What have you become?
All your olive branches turned to spears when your flowers turned to guns.
All your olive branches turned to spears when your flowers turned to guns.
(Jim Croce. Not large in the public consciousness of "musicians who died too young," but he ought to be.)
I remember where I was when Jim Croce died -- at the Corvallis Fall Festival, listening to a band which had just played "You Don't Mess Around With Jim", when the bandleader announced that Croce had died.
Alas, alas. . . .
This is Peni, btw. I forgot to sign myself when I posted the lyrics.
In a desperate move to get away from Clear Channel stations (they're not only a monopoly, all their stations run limited playlists and too many commercials), when my office got me a new computer with a media player I brought as diverse a set of CDs from home as I can muster and created the most diverse set of playlists I could invent. Comments have included: "OK, this is the last place I ever expected to hear rap," and "Janis Joplin followed by Jimmy Horton? Your taste just went from 'eclectic' to 'bizarre.' I have been asked to please skip Tom Lehrer while the office manager was in the room, introduced a young researcher to Aretha Franklin, and prompted floods of reminiscences from people of all ages. The one person everyone in the office sings along to when they come in is Jim Croce.
One of the appraisers stopped when he heard "Time in a Bottle," and asked abruptly: "Do you remember what year Jim Croce died?"
"Sometime in the 70s," I said.
"1973," he said. "The same weekend as my dad."
There wasn't anything I could say except: "That was a bad weekend!"
I LOVE the scooby doo analogy. I hope you don't mind if I appropriate it.
Cheers
I can't claim credit for the Scooby Doo gag. I first heard it as an imagined remark from Nixon to Woodward and Bernstein.
BTW, it would appear that under-30 voters really did turn out in record numbers. Just not quite enough.
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