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PARODY and POTPOURRI

O Canada,
Thy dollar,
How it does rise!
America,
Thy dollar,
Oh, how it dies!

• What is wrong with presidential affirmative action? So what if Americans vote for a candidate based solely on gender, ethnicity or religion? It is a time-honored tradition; we have been doing this since George Washington. The only reason we have the current disaster in the White House is because of the fact that he is white, male, “Christian,” rich, and has a famous name—and had the complicity of five U.S. Supreme Court justices. So, for the very first time, we have the additional option of voting (at least in the primaries) for three very qualified candidates, merely because the person is either a woman, an African American or a Mexican American. It is all in the best American tradition.

• Leave the Dog alone! I am sick and tired of these tearful, abject apologies by people who have been caught on tape using terms supposedly derogatory to black people. What’s new? This is America. Bounty Hunter Duane (Dog) Chapman’s private telephone conversation with his son has caused the usual stir. We cannot control what people think or what they say. The only thing that matters is action. So says the Constitution, and so says common sense.

• “Extraordinary Rendition” is one of the greatest stains on this very blotchy quilt work of an administration. It is now public knowledge that the U.S. government has engaged in the practice of snatching up people off the streets of any city in the world and hustling them off to secret interrogation sites in certain cooperating countries. With only suspicion, and no tangible proof of guilt, these people are tortured (and/or killed) and held indefinitely, with no legal action taken or expectation of release. This, together with Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, has served only to increase foreign antagonism against the U.S. The harm that it has done to our national and international controlling documents will take years to repair.

• Of course, Dennis Kucinich’s impeachment move against Dick Cheney will not have any traction. We can only hope that the airing in the halls of congress of some of the most egregious statements and moves by the vice president, which contributed to the Iraq fiasco, will in some way retard the current stampede to further rash aggression next door.

Demos, Demos,
Where is thy sting?
Why did thee not
Thy bold stones bring?