A Joke

What did Bush say when he first heard about the levees?

Roe vs Wade?

Never tell this joke to a group of Upper West Siders while they are eating in a diner unless you want a Linda Blair pea soup type reaction. It was the first honest belly laugh I have had in many a harvest moon.

How does Bush change a lightbulb?

What lightbulb? Did God turn the electricity off? Does the Radical Christian Right want it changed? Then it will be changed.
That lightbulb? The one that helps poor people? Most Blacks? All non Christians?
Hah? Bush doesn’t see it. Therefore it doesn’t exist.
But my light bulb needs changing
Idiots do it yourself.
I can’t reach it
You are not a God fearing American; you have no moral values; you are not one of us.
You don’t deserve to have light illuminate you.

This is how we have been living for almost five years. This is no longer acceptable.

So screw it in all you radical Christian rightists. You have just become the people you have spent so long making fun of. Your days in the light are numbered. You never were real Christians anyway; real Christians are tolerant caring people.

I read an article about lessons we (Bush?) should have learned from 9/11.

If President Bush looks lost in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (and the rest of us feel that way), it’s because he has no one to blame for this catastrophe. The apocalypse was brought on not by the forces of evil, but of nature, aided and abetted by the incompetence of Bush’s own administration. As a bitter reader from Fairview, N.J., wrote to us this week: “If we are to believe that President Bush and the Christian Right have been talking directly to God these past six years, then it follows that this is God’s answer to their agenda.”

That’s a cheap shot, to be sure, but it’s also a natural question given the righteous pose of a presidency that’s suspicious of science and utterly intolerant of dissent. The fact is, we may draw on our faith for moral and spiritual strength, but there should never be a place in American policymaking for those who claim they’ve got a direct line to God. Such lunatic certainties are the preserve of the enemy—the Osama bin Ladens, the Eric Rudolphs, the Baruch Goldsteins—who want to replace our freethinking societies with ones ordered by their own narrow-minded righteousness.

I often write about The Christian Right in Bring it on. The above quotes were taken from an article by Christopher Dickey in Newsweek called Beyond Good and Evil Dickey expresses much of what I feel.

I, like the rest of the people in my city, feel very close to the people in New Orleans. Like everybody in the country we have felt horrible, helpless and hopeless for the past three weeks.

This past Sunday should have been a time when we felt some sense of hope and renewal. I tried to; I forced myself to pretend that I felt better about things. By forcing myself to pretend to feel better, I ended up sick. Bush blew it; let’s get that one straight

President George W. Bush has always trusted his gut. He prides himself in ignoring the distracting chatter, the caterwauling of the media elites, the Washington political buzz machine. He has boasted that he doesn’t read the papers. His doggedness is often admirable. It is easy for presidents to overreact to the noise around them.
But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it’s mostly a one-way street. But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty.

After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it’s mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil’s advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn’t wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn’t act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.

Disagrement equals disloyalty? Not in my America.

We have a president who doesn’t read the paper and trusts his gut. I trust my gut; then I read, but I’m just an ordinary citizen.

The above quote was taken from annother article in Newsweek called aptly enough “How Bush blew it.” Read it. I’m purposely not taking quotes from my hometown newspaper, because so many people consider it to be a liberal voice. Newsweek is a voice of the people

Nobody could stop Katrina from happening; our administration led by our President could have stopped things that happened next. When America is a led by a president who won’t tolerate views other than the ones he believes, horrible things can and will happen. When the president listens to nobody but his God and some people who believe in his exact replica of God, what does that say about the leader of the United States of America?

It’s time to unite as a country. We’re not one country under god; we’re one country with a diverse population and guess what? Many of us aren’t Christian; many of us have our own views and believe that we should allowed be express them. But after 9/11 it seemed as if tolerance became a word from the distant past.

Last week I was criticized for saying that the federal government should have been a first responder. If you believe in human decency you understand what I (and so many other people) are saying. It’s our government and they’re supposed to be responsive to all of our needs.

I still believe in America; I believe that we can reclaim it. One nation…with justice and liberty for all. America, the last great hope.

But don’t screw with my country and tell me that I’m unpatriotic. Don’t let this sickness fester.
As I said tonight was the first time I really laughed in a long long time. Maybe because I feel a glimmer of hope.

We are an incredible people borne out of the most diverse population. We’re amazing; look at our reaction. We care; we do. Does our government? Not the one we have now.

I’m voting straight Democratic in the November election.

Together we can begin turning our country around. It can once again be the place people want to move to because it will once again be the freest country on earth.

I will be back to the story telling so many of you read me for later this week. I thank you for reading my stories. Part of what makes me a good story teller is my passion; and my passion about this began building a long time before the levees burst.

Maybe the levees are a metaphor for our country. We had to have massive floods before we could stick our finger into the dykes (Hans Brinker and The Silver Skates, a Dutch children’s book) and begin to put it back together.

True patriotism entails dissent. True patriotism entails action. True patriotism entails compassion and so much more.

Impeach Bush And while we’re at that can we begin investigating Karl Rove? That’s a personal vendetta for what he’s said about my city. We’re not supposed to say anything at all against the administration but Rove can make “the liberals therapy for terrorists” remark after he probably committed a treasonous act. What a message to send out to the people

But we’re smarter than them. We represent the true America. I’m so proud of the people of my city, and my country. For once I might just tear up out of happiness. But I won’t. I will learn to belly laugh again. Yes we’re taking back our country. One laugh, and one good deed at a time.