What’s the use?
I got an email from Jill about our former poet laureate Billy Collins. Collins helped to establish a program a couple of years ago called The Poetry 180 Project that aimed to bring a poem a day to American schools for each of the 180 days of the school year. I thought that was a wonderful idea, but I quickly forgot about it because I was overtaken by a different thought. We have a poet laureate, which is great, but what we really need as a nation right now is a cynic laureate.
Cynicism is rampant in America, what with the White House being run by large rodents that scurry around, snarl at the concerned citizens outside the gates and eat the doves of peace. People are cynical. Damn cynical. But even so, we can’t be sure that our nation’s cynicism is enough or even well-directed. We need the services of an experienced, world-class cynic to bring us together in unity and say, “Listen here, we’re all screwed and this is why.”
Of course, in my own cynical view, I am sure that we will never have a cynic laureate. This administration would never stop spinning on its little rodent wheel long enough to consider it. And where would the money come from? The president’s bloated $2.7 trillion budget simply doesn’t have room for the $100 in lottery tickets it would take to lure a worthy cynic out of the dark corner of the seedy bar where he resides drinking his sorrows away. Besides, if you are a cynic, you know with certainty that the candidate for cynic laureate would be the wrong person for the job. Chosen because of who he is, whose ass he kissed, what goddamned stupid secret handshake he knows.
Oh, sure, there are people out there who we all agree would be a good cynic laureate. No shortage of them, really. Jill suggested Jon Stewart. Dennis Miller also comes to mind because he is both Republican and rodent. I was thinking comedian Lewis Black. I like a guy who looks like he is about to pop an artery in his neck when he’s telling me just how fucked up things are. Add your own choice to the list. What the hell, we’re just dreaming here.
The word laureate means a recipient of honor in the arts or sciences. Art? Science? In the Bush administration? Geeze, it doesn’t take the brains of a laureate or even a dung beetle to see the irony there.
All right, my fellow cynics. Sorry I got your hopes up. But be realistic here. If you’re a cynic, by definition, you were born to be disappointed. Still, sometimes there is so much bullshit flowing out of the hose at once, that you simply can’t believe it’s all bad. That’s just the diluted optimism of the human spirit talking. It’ll pass. Need proof? Try this at home. Turn on Fox news and watch for fifteen minutes. Then instruct a friend to beat you with a baseball bat for the same amount of time. Feel a difference? No? Didn’t think so. Now that’s cynical. Next, go out and buy a losing lottery ticket every day until you die. More cynicism? No, that’s your privately-funded retirement plan.
10:54:30 PM 
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