179. Presidents

“Looks like some folks are pissed off at the President.”

With these words, C.W. plopped himself onto the couch and began eating an apple. He tilted his Stetson hat to the back of his head and crossed one leg over the other. His boots were of dark leather and as polished as his oversized belt buckle.

I said, “What the hell are you supposed to be, a cowboy?”

He smiled and chewed his apple. “Just a citizen of the world, Pilgrim.”

“Oh please,” I said.

“I been studyin’,” he said. “Studyin’ about the presidency.”

“I fear for us all,” I said. “Are you the second coming of George W. Bush?”

“Who was he?” He laughed, then added. “Just kidding.”

“So what have you learned? I’m terribly interested.”

“Sarcasm won’t get you nowhere,” he said.

“Sorry,” I said. “Go on.”

“Well,” he said. “Seems a large group of folks gets really irritated with the president of these here United Sates from time to time.” He pronounced it “yooo-nited.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Like when that feller Lincoln freed those who were the legal property of another and forced to obey them.”

“Lincoln didn’t free the wives,” I said, unable to resist screwing around with him. "You need to adjust your Galactic Universal Translator.”

“I trust my GUT,” he said.

“You Texans seem to have a problem with that.”

He ignored me. “Anyway, it was the coloreds that he freed.”

“We don’t call folks that anymore.”

“And it really pissed some people off.”

“It did indeed.” I decided to let him continue.

“Then there was the furor that the second Roosevelt caused when he enacted them programs to help the poor and elderly, you know, some of the least of those among you.”

“Continue.”

“Oh,” he said, “and look what happened when Harry Truman integrated the armed services.”

“Not pretty.”

“Nope. Seems like his policy of ‘if he fights alongside you he can sleep alongside you’ didn’t set too well with some.”

“You do have a point.”

“And lord,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you what happened when Eisenhower and Kennedy took on the educational system in our southern provinces.”

“Uh. No.”

“They’s folks still pissed about that and you see what it has caused: the motion of an object emitting all spectra of light it receives in or through a medium, especially through the earth's atmosphere or through space.”

“White flight,” I said.

“Ain’t that what I just said?”

Never misunderestimate the fact that, where
politics are concerned, a good smile and a
good hat get a person a lot further than doing
good deeds. Hell, a person won't need no
 "nucular option" then. Heh. Heh. - C.W.

“Please continue.” He was beginning to make a point.

“The passage of the civil rights acts of the 1960s by our native son—who by the way we don’t claim no more—Lyndon Baines Johnson cost his party the south. Maybe forever.”

“But look at the good the laws did.”

“My point,’ he said. “It seems to me that if a president wants to get his ass in a crack, the fastest way to do that is to try to help folks. Look at this current occupant.”

What could I say? “So your advice?”

He thought. “I reckon it’s this. If you want to be beloved by some people, cut out all that ‘do-gooder crap.’ Do no good. That’ll get an airport named after you faster than anything.”

“But what about the people who need help?”

“There you go again,” he said.

178. Thanks

From the so-called “mind” of the Alien C.W., edited by the Blogger.

 

Since arriving in your midst, I have been puzzled, bemused, amazed, and sometimes astounded at your habits. But your attitude on Thanksgiving takes the soft sweet bakery item. (Editor’s comment: He means “cake”). You seem to have so many fortuitous dynamics that have created a society basically free from the wars and pestilence that plague so many other societies. Yet, on this day you seem to be most thankful for an overabundance of food and the chance to spend money. It makes my boughntacojitet gland smoke. (Editor: it roughly translates to his “brain,” such as it is).

As a visitor to your society, I would suggest other subjects of this giving of thanks. To wit:

- The historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth who, though failing gloriously in his “end of the world” predictions, left you with such epochal and wonderful admonitions ( abandoned since your 1980s) on brotherly love, cautions against judging, forgiveness of your brothers, care for the poor, and honoring the peacemakers. As an aside, I think you might also be thankful for a current President who would risk the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” to pursue the last. But I am just a shifty alien and what do I know?

Buddha, who, if you would pay attention, showed you a path upon which you might not, in medical terminology, be wound so tightly. (Editor: don’t bother. He’s on a roll).

John Newton, who first gained our attention on the planet of Falloonia when he took you from the “take aways” and “goes intas” stage of mathematics and allowed you, eventually, to escape gravity, of both the physical and religious type.

- Charles Darwin, who explained some very elementary things to you. I was highly amused when Big Dope told me about his epiphany regarding the findings of natural selection. Seems he had encountered the basic theories in a junior high school science class and had been pondering the implications for several days when, while taking a shower, he dropped his washrag. As he, without thinking, retrieved it with the toes of one foot, a great truth of the universe opened for him. Goes to cause to illustrate, doesn’t it? (Editor: “show”.)

- Abraham Lincoln, who held your union together and set the stage for the freeing of a huge segment of humanity. Wonder how many votes he would get today?

Would not a quiet day of reflection work as well? - C.W.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who empowered and ennobled the “least of those, your brethren.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., who truly died for your sins.

William Jefferson Clinton, who gave you eight years of peace and prosperity in the face of unprecedented hate and persecution, and, in return, only asked for a simple … (Editor: Censored).

Hillary Clinton, because the Falloonian Elders thinks she is wonderful.

 

Matthew McConaughey, because Mrs. Big Dope thinks he is dreamy beyond words.

The list could go on, but I am at a borrowed keyboard and must bid you farewell. Let me close by saying that I am thankful today for the time I am getting to spend with you.

Peace.