It was an innocent enough idea to begin with. Indeed it may have begun with an attempt on the part of Governor Jed Bush to distract from the Florida authorities’ continued disenfranchisement of blacks and Hispanic and any others who might be tempted to vote for Kerry in the upcoming Presidential elections.
‘Florida has been ravaged recently by hurricanes, infestation, poverty and crime. Why don’t the media consult their readership on the ideal adjective to describe Florida? I suggest ‘ravished’, he concluded.
As it happened, the top ten suggestions were unprintable! Most were preceded by an expletive, with qualifying adjectives suggesting widespread corruption. ‘Ravished’ did indeed come in at number eleven. A straw poll of those who agreed with Bush’s word indicated that this was how they felt as victims of rape, violent crime and disenfranchisement. Jeb soon dropped the hot potato!
Meanwhile the U.S. Secretary of Labor was praising the beneficial effect on the strained job market of the Iraq war.
‘More than 135,000 U.S. citizens are gainfully employed as military personnel in Iraq alone,’ she boasted. ‘The war there is keeping these young men and women out of the unemployment lines and also teaching them such valuable skills as operating radar equipment, driving battle tanks and filling body bags.
Most troops won’t need to seek new work for another four to seven years. Then there’s Afghanistan still, Iran, Syria, North Korea. An emergency draft might even return the country to full employment.’
Not the literal truth, but the underlying message was there.
On a lighter vein we learned this week of an Australian woman who allegedly suffered from ‘sleep sex’. Apparently she left her house at night and had sex with total strangers without waking up.
How, I wondered, did she learn this? How did she meet them, did they proposition her or vice versa? Was there no foreplay? Did neither feel anything? Will Peter at the Pearly Gates accept her story? Does any of this matter? What is her address?
Kopi luwak coffee, I learned this week, at