April 1st News---Undersecretary of State to Wed Bin-laden


Tauscher To Wed bin-Laden, April 1st News Service, April 1, 2009

Congresswoman and soon to be Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher (D-Alamo), shocked national and international diplomacy and fashion circles today when she announced she would wed Osama bin-Laden in a wedding to be held at a secret location in Nairobi this June. Supporters were elated for the couple and were relieved that the secret was finally out as a 2-year tryst between Tauscher and bin-Laden was about to be exposed on Entertainment Tonight.

“This is the reason Ellen was named to State,” said a source close to the couple. Indeed, President Barack Obama has agreed in principle to name Tauscher as a special envoy to al Qaeda in the hopes of reaching a detente with Fascist Islamic terrorism.

The happy couple plans to honeymoon at bin-Laden’s villa in Iran before they take up their trendy bi-mountain lifestyle; spending time between semi-permanent residences in a lavishly remodeled cave nestled in the hills overlooking downtown Kabul, Afghanistan, and a brownstone walkup in the rolling countryside of Pakistan near the Afghan border. The couple registered at Target and Penney’s.

With a twinkle in his good eye, bin-Laden—clowning his world famous Johnny Carson imitation—said he was looking forward to riding Ellen like a goat. “Barefoot, naked, and in the pen at the back of the cave, that’s the right place for women.”

April is poetry time

Today is the 1st day of National Poetry Month. Once again we honor those whose words have touched us.
My nominee this year is Gwendolyn Brooks (right), born in 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, but known throughout much of her 83 years of life as a Chicagoan. Among her many honors, in 1950 she became the 1st African American person to receive a Pulitzer Prize, and she served as Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968. Brooks was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1985 to 1986.
Perhaps my favorite of Brooks' poems is We Real Cool (1966), which contains the luscious line "We Jazz June." But it ends sadly, and so here I reprint another, more uplifting work of hers -- and welcome your own poetry nominations.


Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

 
Bloggers Team