Here in America, We have polls.

Who knew the measure of our happiness would be the afternoon polling data from Virginia? White men between the ages of 45 and 54 who attend church less than once a month and have bowled at least a 200 game in the last year and are divorced from their first wives and own two cars, one mower, three dogs and two guns, one which they named Big Spanky? Who do they favor? Said information is fed into the giant machine, and the results are disseminated throughout the worldwide mind and we go about our days in happiness or terror in accordance.

The sky is falling! The Spanky vote is fading! How do we get back the Spankies?


I have a commercial for you then: Open with a tight shot on a redheaded girl with freckles holding some wildflowers and a Raggedy Anne doll. Pull back. She’s standing in the middle of a beautiful meadow, on a gorgeous sunshiney day. Pull back further so the whole scene is framed between fluttering Maple leaves. Then: shoot her. Slow mo. Mow her down. Fly an RPG right up Raggedy’s ass. As she looks at the camera in bewilderment, drop a nuke on her; then, as the mushroom cloud spreads across the sky, play an audio track of our opponent laughing. Fade to Black and the tag line: Our Opponent Laughs at Murdered Little Girls.

Yes indeed, this is the lovely world. This is the one precious go-round.


They’re running on hate now. It burns with more energy than truth and so it fills the newspapers and airwaves. It corrodes what it touches, peels your skin off and blinds you, gets inside your muscles and strips them, snaps your bones like twigs, leaves you desperate for an ending, any ending. Just make it stop! Field-dress me already!

Here at Gallaudet, there is not, unfortunately, the level of political activism you’d like to see. And I can understand it: the students are doubly removed from the world here, by the ivory walls and the silent ones. But that’s no excuse. If any of all y’all are reading this – we have a registration rally next Monday, the 22nd, at the Marketplace! And that Friday, we’re going to watch the debate on the big screen! Be there.

It’ll be great. Pizza and Cake and Debate. And I can give you a preview:

O: World’s broke. Let’s fix it. Together!
M: (Coughs loudly) Elitist.
O: Excuse me?
M: Yes, I’m the fixer. I’ll fix it.
O: But you broke it.
M: Not fair. You can’t say that. How can you say that? How. Can. You. Say. That?
O: Uh, you wrote the policies.
P: (Offstage) I can see the moon from my house! Whoa-ho! I should fly the space shuttle!
M: (Coughs loudly) Negro.
O: Excuse me?
M: Well, look who’s defensive.
P: (Offstage) Tell the bodyworker, thanks but no thanks! I can stick my head up there all by myself! Watch! Watch! Wa –
(Pause. The moderator repeatedly fires a staple gun at his forehead.)
M: We’re against earmarks.

I’ll tell you something that’s become abundantly clear watching this all play out. It hurts to watch something hurdle towards its own destruction. Sweet planet o’ mine, you have my sincerest apologies. We really do love you; it’s just that some of us forget we are you.

In closing:


Rest, Big O. Walkies when it's over.