“Alright, I’ll have to deal with this,” said the President. “Let
me remind you,” s/he added as the meeting showed signs of breaking
up. “We are not going to approach this in the traditional fashion.
This is precisely why I was elected to office. And let me remind
you that I am the only person in this room who has been elected to
office by the entire American people. All of you have been
appointed to your position, most of you by me. So I have the weight
and strength of the American people behind me when I say that we
are not going to go to war over this
matter. The pages of history are filled with such outbreaks — men
fighting over land, men fighting over women, men fighting over the
size of sticks they have found in the forest. It happened several
times in the last century and I promise you upon my Oath of Office
that it is not going to happen again.
This is an era when the United States of America is going to
transcend gender.” Even as I have transcended it myself, s/he added
in her own mind.
Even as you have transcended it yourself, thought everyone in
the room. But no one said it aloud.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, the President sat before the holographic
cameras in the Oval Office and began: “My fellow Americans. I come
before you today to discuss a matter of the gravest importance to
all of us…”
TLP| 9.21.12 @ 8:40AM
You didn't hear it from me, but the Contest has begun.
Look and you shall Find.
Bob S| 9.22.12 @ 3:42AM
Man, I really should've read the first part.
Mizza? Really? I honestly don't think we'll go down THAT route.
John II| 9.22.12 @ 10:54AM
Well, I DID read the first part. "Brave New World" it ain't--the writing is slapdash and cheesy, and the characters are cardboard figurines cut out to represent types and (bad) ideas. In other words, it's a serviceable piece of dystopian extrapolation, with no pretense at literary merit. Myself, I have only two problems with the effort:
1. Since the characters are merely stand-ins for ideas, the inconsistencies one might expect in a real character are just plain inconsistent. In the first episode, for example, Mizza President is made to recall Hitler in the Sudetenland; the reference to Hitler as a kneejerk lefty expression of moral superiority is okay, but the particularity of the reference (Sudetenland) is inconsistent with the airhead type represented by Mizza President, who cannot plausibly have any knowledge of or interest in history. Like herm real-life antecedents in the Obamanation, s/he is strictly a child of herm times. More to follow if anyone's reading . . .
John II| 9.22.12 @ 10:56AM
2. As others have already suggested, the year 2065 may be stretching the timeline out a bit too much. This point came home to me with the fourth episode, in which the asinine discussion in the White House reminded me explicitly of almost any faculty meeting I've attended in the past ten years or so. In other words, Mr. Tucker's future extrapolation is already with us. If the Chinese took over Hawaii tomorrow, I can't imagine that the Professor's cabinet would discuss the development in any essentially different way.
I have nine grandchildren so far. In the year 2065, the oldest of them will be almost a decade younger than I am now.
TLP| 9.24.12 @ 9:00AM
I hate to break up this Love Fest, but, other than Copying Mr. and Ms. Romer? The rest of the Column looks pretty much like a Phone in Cut and Paste.
And, don't think I didn't notice that you gave my little Contest THE FINGER, cause I did.
That being said, (and, with you being so smart, and all) there is ONE Tax that this Clean and Articulate Magic Negro (Hat Tip - Village Idiot and LA TIMES) has no problem Cutting. FICA.
Now, why do you suppose, with Soc. Sec. on its last leg, would President You didn't build that, Shut Off the only means of Funding for Social Security?
You're a Brainiac. Why do you think he's doing it?
Better yet.
What do the Romers think?
You shoulda went to The Contest.
It even had Subtitles in Swahili, and Borneoinian, just for you.