Friday, April 17, 2009

April's Fools


If you’re as weary of the tea parties nonsense as I am, skip this.

I’ve had it with April’s Fools. I know in my heart they’re going to be 2009’s fools. Worse, twenty-first century fools.

April's Fools are angry with a president who can’t, in less than three months, salvage and repair the ship of state their ship of fools of choice plunged into the depths of darkest waters during eight lost, and found pirated, years. Their solution? Tea bags.

Earlier today, in a tea room filled with civilized people, I sipped tea properly steeped (from loose tea) and served from a teapot brimming with calm, not a tempest. [Full disclosure: in Manhattan, my two daughters own three charming "Alice's Tea Cup" restaurants where tea is an art and a pleasure, not a political protest.]

Tea, like patriotism, like love and sex, or hygiene, should never be tepid. Or tainted. It is not for revolutionaries, and despite the romance of The Boston Tea Party, should not be bagged or balled or pre-packaged. It should be savored, not “spun,” social, not “socialized.”

I wanted to know what the tea partiers were thinking. Where better to go than Twitter? After wading through twiddle heaped on twaddle, I was able to read the tea leaves. It was all about having fun! Mirth by malcontents who needed an excuse to party while they fumed, and then declared
how fun it wz- u shdv bn ther! :)

All this while I was sipping Grand Keemun! I thought of the grand events I hadn’t missed—the Bicentennial, Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve fireworks, the end of the Vietnam War, the dawn of the twenty-first century, the election of the first black president of the United States. And then I thought of people I don’t want to know dressed in revolutionary war costumes, hoisting seditious signs unwittingly profaning their own misguided patriotism, dangling, waving and wasting teabags—sheep herded by one nefarious, self-serving right wing Australian who, unbelievably, is having many a field day telling Americans what to think and feel and do—at their expense—as he and his surrogates goad them into telling the rest of us we’re un-American and should go to Cuba!

One thing I can say in defense of those sheep—there’s not a lot of black sheep among them. (On the other hand, I can’t resist saying I inadvertently dredged up the slang meaning of tea-bagging and my reaction was “Ewe!”)

I thought about what these people I don’t know and don’t want to know drink. The evidence is clear: for starters, too much Kool-Aid. Matriculating to Pabst Blue Ribbon—"We're an American Brand"—and Boones Farms—"We're an American Brand." Encased for aging until, as it appears today, GOP stands for the Grand Ovaltine Party.

Tea parties. Brew-ha-hahs?

9 comments:

  1. As clever as this one is, it's also kind of de trop. As are these stupid tea parties, given and attended by people who cannot EVER seem to admit their mistakes -- and hence can never grow and change. But then, why would they? Growth and change, after all, is what evolution brings. And we all know how they feel about THAT.

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  2. I rarely watch Fox news but I couldn't resist taking a peak as they pumped up this non event. Over and over they refrred to this as "tea bagging" foregive the indellicacy but their "ball licking" has lowered the bar to a new level.
    Jerry

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  3. Never in a million years would I think that Republicans would be against sodomy but all for tea-bagging.

    And to para-phrase Jon Stewart "the irony in people buying a million tea bags to protest wasteful spending" made me laugh.

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  4. Remember, if the tea parties don't work, things will get nasty. What will you eat if the flyover parts stop sending you food?
    The Usurper won with about 31% of the eligible voters. 40+% never voted. He is flying around in Air Force One because There were no conservatives running for POTUS this cycle. Which is why Conservatives stayed home in '08.
    The alleged Hawaiian helping Nancy and Harry destroy the economy, which will get him tossed out in 2011. You see, he is NOT a natural born American and ineligible to be POTUS. So after Congress runs the economy down (Congress has the power of the purse, NOT POTUS and is therefore responsible for the current economy), voters will show up in 2010. The new Congress will make impeaching the Usurper it's first order of business.
    The fun begins when EVERY bill he signs is invalidated because he had no more authority to sign a bill then the parking lot attendant at 14th and I NW.

    John Samford

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  5. I was happy to see all the tea-partying. The GOP is so old and off-base that they just keep digging it deeper. Keep talkin', Sarah and Jindal... And keep making tremendous fools of yourselves, conservatives, by throwing "tea parties" because it only ensures a re-election of the smartest man to become president in my lifetime.

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  7. What nonsense...

    The GOP is foolish to compare this act to the Boston Tea Party. That party actually served its purpose, was well-coordinated, and was devoid of any sexual innuendo. (Just imagine having to learn about the Boston Tea-Bagging.) Nay, there is only one convoluted tea-party that this chicanery compares to. I speak, of course, of A Mad Tea-Party.Like Alice, America has been subjected to a mad tea-party. Such a shame... can anyone honestly say they would decline such an invite? I should hope not. A tea-party (much like a trip to Rome) is a hard thing to pass up. Unfortunately, Alice was not in good company.

    'I don't want to go among mad people.'She can't help that. They're all mad here.

    Peculiar... they say there's 'no room!' for Alice, yet there are plenty of free chairs. (Sigh. If only they had invited their Log-Cabin friends.) Oh, and what's this? What's with all these personal attacks! Is it just because she's a girl, or speaks French, or because of her role in the caucus-race?

    `You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some severity; `it's very rude.'Oh, and their riddles! So very uncouth. Instead of ravens and writing-desks, I saw one read: 'One-term limits!' Curiouser and curiouser... where was this teabagger four years ago?

    And for just-desserts, they offered a thin slice of secession. Secession... the nation had come together in a way we had not seen since 9/11 on Nov. 4, and the GOP is now flirting openly with secession. If there's anything redeeming we should take from this message, it's that the Republican Party is officially no longer the party of Lincoln.

    Why such nonsense? Do they honestly say what they mean, or do they mean what they say? Well, I say that they're mean! How dare they subject poor Alice to this nonsense!

    `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.'And all the growing right-wing extremism?

    `How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.By the time they started waterboarding poor Dormouse, Alice had had enough of their party.

    `It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!'It's a shame that the Republicans have made such a mockery of tea-parties. This was the first one they planned and it has already become the butt of more jokes than the titmouse. I have no taste for such bitterness. I, like Alice, only take tea with friends (which I am very privileged to have at Alice's Tea Cup.)

    Should these dissidents wish to make a stronger statement about what they think is wrong with the nation, I suggest they take a page from Alice and look into the mirror.

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  8. I wish America would lighten up just a bit. The Grand Ovaltine Party (Bravo Ray) and the Democraps both need to get the "tics" out of politics. Their facial displeasure at all things disagreeable with their lack of leadership makes them ALL ugly. Code PINK barks shrilly at Congressional hearings and we praise them for dedication to peace around the world. A few thousand people protest on the street against funding "why pigs stink" and 8999 other pork projects that affect the fiscal health of the country they live in and all we hear about it is from the "intellectuals" Garafolo and Olberman. Let's all lighten up folks and allow that people on both sides of issues are privileged to live in a country where it is ok to disagree. Why is it though that we all seem to have to be so damned disagreeable? Lighten up. Things could be worse. We could all be Somali pirates.

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  9. Hannity, Rush,Coulter as well Olberman, Maddow, Begala and Carville all need to be water-boarded. They ALL spew hate-filled nonsense. Code Pink, Move On, Fairness in Media, The Huffington Post, Acorn, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, are all either far left or far right spewers of inaccuracies and hate. There's something wrong when the BBC is the only place to go for balanced news reporting about what's happening in America. The press in America is dead, so all the right and left wing hate mongers are having a hay day pulling this country apart rather than bringing it together. WTF indeed!

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