>From Jones: ...
> "GertrudeBaines' 114-year-old fingers wrapped lightly over the > ballpoint pen as she bubbled in No. 18 on her ballot Tuesday. > Her mouth curled up in a smile. A laugh escaped. > The deed was done." Priceless. As my wife and I went to the polls yesterday I was struck not by the huge droves of people who had come out to vote, but by the unusually large numbers of very old seniors who were also in line performing their civic duty. I saw individuals, tottering couples, people who were carefully helping each other negotiate two little steps up a sidewalk and into the elementary school where the voting booths awaited them. One lady walking gingerly with cane in hand in front of me sported a pate of male pattern baldness that put my own decimated lawn to shame. She didn't care. Nor did I. I have no idea who she voted for, only that she did as if she knew this was probably going to be the last time she would ever get the change to do so. Make it count. I look forward to seeing a comedy skit performed on Saturday Night Live where the scene begins with an actor playing Barack is in the process of completing another interview with a reporter. Stately and dignified, Barack stands up and thanks the reporter. Barack then heads over to an adjacent room to conduct high level private cabinet meeting. As Barack enters the room and closes the door he abruptly switches dialect from Midwestern to hard-core Jive-talk. Not only that all of Barack's cabinet members are jabbering away in jive-talk, ESPECIALLY ALL the white-folk cabinet members. Suddenly, a clueless low level page bursts into the room to distribute ham hocks and beans, giblets simmered in gravy and biscuits, ice tea, and fresh sliced watermelon. Mysteriously, as the clueless page distributes the cuisine the entire cabinet has mysteriously switched back to traditional Midwestern dialect. After the page leaves, its back to Jive-talk as usual. I'm sure there are many juicy cabinet level topics SNL writers could desecrate. One comes to mind: A brief argument over changing the name of the "White House" to the "Black House". One cabinet member, who is obviously white, is particularly displeased with the proposal. He begins spitting watermelon seeds at Barack. Granted, some might think this isn't very funny. Some might even suggest it was disrespectful, lowbrow, even racist of me to have even envisioned such a SNL skit. Hopefully, however, some might simply see it as nothing more than another welcomed step in leveling the playing field of comedy, where all races and cultures have the freedom to poke fun at themselves and each other, including specific eccentricities (accurately depicted or not) assigned to each culture's precious ethnicity, whether it be black, yellow, brown, white, or mongrel, and in any opportunistic combination that makes it a point to spare no one from the sharp blade satire. Viva, the diversification! RIP, Michael Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
