Somewhere along the way of trying to get educated, I think some teacher told me that many, if not most, nursery rhymes of our childhood were actually thinly veiled political comments. I don”t know much about the politics of olden days; I even get confused about those of today. Nevertheless, although I am not a political columnist, I thought I”d try to compose a few “nursery rhymes” of my own to fit today”s world. Please bear with me.
On morality and ethics:
Jack and Jill went up the Hill
At the Capitol to look;
Jack fell down on moral ground,
So Jill just wrote a book.
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife but couldn”t keep her;
Locked her in a pumpkin shell,
But she escaped, and, truth to tell,
She took the kids and left her prison;
He kept the stocks and bonds for his”n.
There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile
Along a crooked path, to support his crooked style;
Then he got so wealthy that he smiled a crooked smile.
In time he got arrested and had a crooked trial;
But the jury wasn”t crooked, so without their crooked guile
They sent him off to prison, where he spent a crooked while.
A certain politician, on the way down to perdition,
Padded his pockets along the way;
He formed coalitions to ignore home conditions,
But what will happen election day?
On the war against obesity:
Simple Simon met a pieman, going to the fair;
Said Simple Simon to the pieman, “Let me taste your ware.”
Said the pieman to Simple Simon, “I fear I cannot do that;
For if I let you taste my pie, man, you know ”twill make you fat.”
On national health care:
Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet
At the end of a long and hard day;
But redistributing wealth to provide everyone health,
Congress taxed even her muffet away.
Old Mother Hubbard sat sick in her cupboard,
Trying to stay very brave;
But government red tape and triage-imposed wait
Were sending her straight to her grave.
On the economy:
Old King Obama enjoyed the drama
Of distributing his Christmas pie:
A million, a billion, a trillion, a zillion;
As to debt he just says, “What care I?”
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner,
Surveying his 401-K;
With employment woes and mortgage-scheme foes,
It was swiftly fading away.
On our own culpability:
Santa Claus is here to stay,
To give us things ”most every day;
Our hands are out in all directions;
You can”t beat Santa in “free” elections!
In conclusion:
Oh, some don”t like the Democrats,
And Republicans get cussed;
The Government flat scares us,
And Big Business we can”t trust.
The bankers take tax money,
Give their CEOs big bonus;
Declare that they can”t lend it,
Doing that would be an onus.
It really doesn”t matter if they make loans anyway,
For the common man who lost his job surely cannot pay.
Beneath such ministrations
We can only cry and yelp,
For we have trepidations
That we can”t survive their help!
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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