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Friday, August 07, 2009

Obamaland

My mother keeps me up on what the fringe right is up to. Apparently, our President's actual name is "Kenya Bob", and he was a darling child much loved in the Nairobi market places. Then there is Obamaland; it would seem that the quick minds of Limbaugh et alii have seen through the persiflage and divined that Mr. Obama has the intent to rename the USA "Obamaland". My mother told me this. For the first time, I laughed out loud and unrestrainedly right at her, and I said "You are not that stupid!" I was taking a chance. I mean, she is not stupid at all, nor has she dementia. She does the Sunday NY Times crosswords yet, and she is not a fool. I rarely - if ever - ever said that something she said was stupid. In fact, I never said such a thing in my life. I may have thought it was stupid; indeed, very stupid, but I never said so right into her face. But I did. And I had to embellish it, too. I said that it was ever thus with dictators: Hitler changed the name of Germany to Hitlerville, Mussolini changed "Italy" to Mussolini Acres, and Franco was just on the verge of officially changing "Spain" to Francisco's Bide-a-Wee when he passed. Even now, the infamous Hugo Chavez who had the audacity to make constitutional changes by the radical means of a popular vote - not going through an electoral college or some such class institution - has a nefarious plot to eventually re-name Venezuela as "Carmen Miranda Meadows". She laughed sheepishly and said, "Well, I don't believe that, Obamaland. That is stupid. But..."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I was mortified to discover that my intelligent, well-read, well-educated Mom listens religiously to Rush Limbaugh. What few political discussions we've ventured upon in the past few years have not ended happily. So we simply don't talk about it anymore. It was that way for years with my father, who was a right wing extremist.

If you don't talk about it, you see, you can pretend that your parents aren't political morons.

Montag said...

I use an attitude of semi-befuddled interest, such as if someone mentions something about geography - the Falkland Islands, for example - I ask: isn't that where Obama was born?

So...what monster will you and I listen to when we grow old? What will Conservative thought be by then?
What great joy there is in continual negation!! ( Der Geist der stets verneint, as Goethe speaks...) Deny, deny and obstruct! When in a position to do something oneself, act in a vile and depraved manner.