Overheard at Booth 4

I caught my kid skateboarding with a new buddy the other night when I got home and was checking the mail slot - I really like it when he finds friends who actually introduce themselves to me and don't get all acting like I don't exist 'n shiff, but he was really cool, and

then I had to tell my kid, I said, "Hey have you finished your homework?" and he says, "No Dad I haven't" and I say, "Don't want to embarass you in front of your friend or anything, but you gotta get home and finish your homework," and get this - he says, "Hey I don't get embarassed watch this!"

and he points his skateboard at his friend and suddenly spits out, "MY MOM KISSES ME IN PUBLIC - YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?!"

and his buddy's just looking at him like "who is this weirdo?" and I'm about near to burst out laughin', he was so funny!

couldn't believe it - what a great kid.

Verble Gherulous Speaks

reading the latest survey about what is going to happen in a short month, Verble suddenly begins,

"You know, that's what the problem is with you Yanks, you can't keep a coherent thought in your collective brain for five minutes, and you don't see that the problem is your political parties - I mean really, the whole country wants to vote back into the power the same party that flooked the entire country for the past eight years. It's not enough that they bent you over a barrell and had their lewd and lascivious way with your backside, now you want to go belly up and have them give you another good ol' ROGERING for the Gipper!

"I mean, seriously! Look at it - cutting taxes for the rich dropped the income, which equals no money for the coffers for things like, oh, I dunno, TWO WARS - which you couldn't afford, but you didn't notice because your conservative-led Fed Reserve brought rates down so low that everyone started buying homes that they couldn't afford and then the megabanks realized they could make big fat wads of cash to throw on top of the pile of big fat wads of cash they already had and eventually you had this giant unsustainable bubble which burst little cream all over this supposedly great country,

"because the conservative-led government had told ALL the cops to take the decade off! The cops who were supposed to police these banks and these Wall Street fat cats to make sure they didn't take off with the entire American Pie! Who was guarding the vault? NOBODY! So the head of the banks just took off with all the cash they were supposed to guard.

"And when it all came crashing down, did the businesses - who had record profits from all those tax breaks - did THEY invest their money so they could help their people out in the lean times? NO! They told 'em all 'don't let the door hitcha in the applesauce on the way out!'

"So - let's take it all down and make it simple for you Yanks, OK? You let your government be ruled by conservatives, and they let business have its way and it screw you. For a bright shining moment you woke up and said 'We just got totally buggered! Enough of this!'

"But now, since you can't fix in two years what took eight to demolish, you're so impatient that you're going to vote back in the same people who got you in this mess in the first place!

"And what's really pathetic is they're not even trying to say they've changed! They're not even saying they're going to do anything new - or better! They're spoon-feeding you the same babybarf that you swallowed whole for this entire nacent century! They're telling you again that if you let business have all your money, then everything will be hunky dory!

"Well, it's NOT, my sweet angelic stupid-as-doornails Yank friends, because you - are - stupid!"




And everyone at the cafe, listening to this, was silent for a second, and then went back to their own conversations.

Overheard at the counter: Steppenwolf tells Plantagenet "Don't worry about him, he always pulls out the 'Yank' rant whenever he sees America doing something completely illogical."

Plantagenet replies, "So, pretty much every day, then?"

At the Counter: Ravens and Writing Desks

Looking over Niall's shoulder, Verble wipes his hands on his towel and says, "What're you looking at there?"

Niall turns his laptop around and says, "It's been buggin' me, that riddle from Alice in Wonderland, and I knew only Cecil Adams would be able to help me - so I just looked it up in his annals of human knowledge" :

Why is a raven like a writing desk?
April 18, 1997

Dear Cecil:
This is something that drives me crazy every time I hear it: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Is there really a hilarious answer to this seemingly impossible riddle? Or is the hilarious part that there really isn't an answer? Also, where did this riddle originate?
— Mary, via the Internet

Dear Mary:
This riddle is famous, although it's the rarefied kind of fame that entails most people never having heard of it. It comes from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Alice is at the tea party with the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse, when apropos of pretty much nothing the Hatter pops the question above. Several pages of tomfoolery ensue, and then:

"Have you guessed the riddle yet?" the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

"No, I give it up," Alice replied. "What's the answer?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter.

"Nor I," said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. "I think you might do something better with the time," she said, "than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers."

At this point most of us are thinking: Ho-ho, that Lewis Carroll, is he hilarious or what? But inevitably you get a few losers who say: Well, OK, but I still want to know why a raven is like a writing desk. One sighs wearily. Guys! It's a joke! The answer is that there isn't any answer!
Oh, they say. (Pause.) But why is a raven like a …

Lewis Carroll himself got bugged about this so much that he was moved to write the following in the preface to the 1896 edition of his book:

Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz: 'Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an afterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.

Did this discourage people? No. They figured, that dope Carroll, he's too dumb to figure out his own riddle, setting aside the halfhearted attempt just quoted. So they ventured answers of their own, some of the more notable of which are recorded in Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice and More Annotated Alice:

Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes. (Puzzle maven Sam Loyd, 1914)

Because Poe wrote on both. (Loyd again)

Because there is a B in both and an N in neither. (Get it? Aldous Huxley, 1928)

Because it slopes with a flap. (Cyril Pearson, undated)

Not bad for amateurs. But the real answer, to which the careers of Poe and Carroll bear ample testimony, is that you can baffle the billions with both.

Postscript: In 1976 Carroll admirer Denis Crutch pointed out that in the 1896 preface quoted above, the author had originally written: "It is nevar put with the wrong end in front."

Nevar of course is raven spelled backward. Big joke! However, said joke didn't survive the ministrations of the proofreaders, who, thinking they understood the author's intentions better than the author, changed nevar to never in subsequent editions. The indignities we authors suffer! Sure, we make up for it in money and groupies, but still, if in some book (e.g., one of mine) you come across a line that really clanks, be assured: It was funny before.

Why a raven is like a writing desk, continued

Dear Cecil:
A comment concerning Lewis Carroll's infamous "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" riddle. The best answer I ever heard — and remember that feather pens were a common writing tool of the day, and that writing desks had inkwells — was, "Because they both come with inky quills."
— Connor Freff Cochran, via AOL

Dear Cecil:
I distinctly remember reading in a dumb mid-80s comic book that one answer is, "Because Poe wrote on both."
— Raistlin Wakefield, via the Internet

Dear Cecil:
Back in the 1930s, when I first picked up my mother's dog-eared copy of the works of Lewis Carroll, I asked her why a raven was like a writing desk. She answered with a straight face, "Because you cannot ride either one of them like a bicycle." Since this was true, and it was just as true as saying, "Because neither one of them is made from aluminum," I always thought Mom was right.
— Anonymous, via the Internet

Cecil replies:
So, Mary. (Remember Mary?) You wanted to know whether there was a really hilarious solution to this riddle. Got your answer now?
— Cecil Adams

Overheard at Table 2

Plantagenet: In Sunday school class today the pastor went on again about the homosexual agenda. Every sunday, same thing: the homosexual agenda. How they're ruining the country, trying to indoctrinate our kids, how they're destroying marriage - tell me, what is this obsession with gays?

Capulet: Timing. They won the 2004 election by tying homosexual marriage to the presidential ballot. Got Bush elected a second time.

Septuagent: Actually, that was the first time he was truly elected. 2000 was decided by the Supreme Court.

Capulet: Yeah, yeah. I forgot that.

Plantagenet: But now you're talking about the Republican party, being controlled by the conservative right. That's not the Christian church. The Christian church and ideology has been hijacked by those guys, but I'm talking about Christians, and this all consuming passionate fire against GAYS!

Capulet: Well, you know what they say . . . if you can't stop talking about it . . .

Septuagent: Please, homophobia as a thin mask for homoerotic desires? Please!

Capulet: Well, Plantagenet brought up the question.

Plantagenet: I dunno, maybe it does have to do with the Republican party - maybe they put the bug in the ear of the evangelical church - wound 'em up and set 'em off. i dunno. But there's got to be a reason!

Overheard at Booth 4

Britney Riga is telling her friend, "Sometimes doesn't it just seem like no one really pays attention any more?"

But while she's saying this, her friend is texting "where r u, meet us @Z&T - brits hvng a fit!!!!!"

At the Counter

Verble says, "For all you Tea Party activists who hate taxes, listen to Romans Chapter 13!

1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Love, for the Day is Near 8Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet,"[a] and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."[b] 10Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
11And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.[c]

So there! PAY YOUR TAXES!!!! It's against the will of God not to!"



And then Steppenwolf says, "yeah, but you forget one thing."


"What's that?"



"The Tea Party is full of YOUNG Republicans (actually - libertarians in Republican clothing) - it's the middle aged and old Republicans who pretend to be Christian."



"Oh. You mean the young wolves have eaten the old wolves?"



"and they're picking their teeth with the bones!"

At the Counter: Vampires Suck Sucks and Despicable Me

Oh my God, that was the first time that I had ever walked out on a movie in my life! I suppose it's true that, dang, things certainly change, especially perspective!, when you have kids, but

man! I went in there with my two little girls and my wife, and all three of my ladies are just all over this Twilight thing, you know, and the wife and I were thinking that maybe this'd just be a little spoof of the Twilight series, and seriously,

when we got in there and the movie started, man! I could tell right quick that it wasn't going to be just a spoof. and it's not that we're prudes or nothin' I mean, we grew up on National Lampoon and Airplane, Naked Gun, all that, but

this was just tasteless. I mean, I saw a woman taking her granddaughter out in the first few minutes, and I was just prayin' that it'd get better, but really, after the dad made the comment about his daughter's rack, I just had to get the kids out of there,

and what really sucks, you know is that I know that when I was a seventeen year old kid myself, I would have thought that was stinkin' hilARIOUS, you know, but now that I've got tween daughters, it just

really takes on a different tone, you know, but anyway, we got the manager to let us in to see the last of Despicable Me, which was pretty good, although it'd been better if we'd seen it from the beginning,

but really, there oughta be better previews, you know, something to let us know what we're getting into!

Overheard from Table 3

Old man, lines drawn around the eyes, white moustache crinkling around his mouth as he leans back in his chair and drawls,

"When you get right down to it, the only real difference between government and business is that government hurts people through ignorance, and business hurts people through malice . . .

but both of them, when they find out how they've hurt you, will try to tell you that it's actually good for you . . .

and then you get to the real problem - because only business can afford the PR firms to convince you!"

At the Counter: Edward Watches Bella - Raptor Watches Edward

"You put that on your blog?" says John Steppenwolf.

"Yeah," says Niall Carter, "it's hilarious as hellendorfer! I love it. Movie mosh-ups, man, the next big thing."

"My daughter loves that movie, almost as much as my wife," says Verble, looking over his shoulder at the screen. "The girl doesn't know about Jurassic Park, though, she asked me what a raptor was."

"You know, that's sad," says Steppenwolf, "not knowing about Jurassic Park - that movie's not that old, is it?"

"About twenty years, yeah," says Verble.

"No way!"

"Way."

"Dang. We're getting old."

"Speak for yourself," says Verble. "I'm getting younger every day."

Niall begins to sing, "I was so much older then . . .

and they all join in, "I'm younger than that NOW!"

Over the Shoulder in Booth 3

This is on the screen of the young woman's laptop as she is reading the post that one of her classmates has put on the discussion board in response to a question about immigration for her Macroeconomics class:



Basically, the immigration question is emotionally charged no matter what way you look at it, but since we're on it, I would like to pose it as an economic question with a few select sources:
First, there are by estimation some 12 million undocumented immigrants in the US, the majority from Mexico and Central America (by the way, there were also 3500 illegal Irish in Boston in 2005, until President Bush pardoned them on St Patricks Day - the pardoning is truth, although the year may be wrong), but looking at it from the standpoint of what we learned in chapter one: the Rationality Assumption - no one does anythign that would leave them worse off. With that as an agreed starting point, let's face the facts: Millions cross a border every year to wander through the desert without food or water. Children as young as 7 years old jump trains from El Salvador to ride up through Guatemala and Mexico, people who often fall of the trains, facing dismemberment or death. You probably read the train story of Mumbai from the class book, well - same thing happens just south of our border every day as well.
Plus, it's not as though these immigrants are coming to a land that will welcome them with open arms - believe me when I say very few Latinos really have a burning desire to make their way in Gringolandia. So, economically speaking, what would bring them here?
Maybe it's the realization that economic conditions are SO poor that there is really no other viable option - between starvation and going Al Norte to make enough living to support your family back home. Now, we can sit here and make judgement calls regarding "their" reproductive habits and what have you, but that really doesn't solve anything. The point is, economic conditions in Mexico and Centroamerica are poorer than here.
Now - why? Well, there is a history of military dictatorships, there is a history of US military intervention (especially in establishing those military dicatorships - face it, the US loves a fascist regime better than a commie regime, right?) and lastly, about 18 years ago, there was something called NAFTA - pushed through congress under Bush the First and signed into law by Clinton, which according to an article I read I believe in Time a few years back was designed to push down prices of food stuff such as corn so deeply that it was actually cheaper for Mexico to buy it from Mississippi than it was to grow it in San Luis Potosi. The result: more farmers with dead farms, and a migrant population that doubled in the following decade. That is what we would probably call unintended consequences of a macroeconomic decision (however, some conspiracy theorists out there might make the case that it was entirely intended to make a new slave class, but that doesn't solve anything either).
About the quality of work, several have stated "You get what you pay for" but I would like to say that sometimes you get more than what you pay for - and businesses know this. I knew a man who worked alongside Mexicans who fought their way through the desert just to take jobs laying tile or putting roofs on houses and they worked for less money than him and did a better job. I really feel that the quality of the job depends on the amount of the emotional gratitude you put into the job, and is no reflection on wage. Poor wages do not necessarily compute into inferior labor. That's part of a human factor that business tries to exploit, with the "You should be grateful I pay you anything at all" mentality that many day laborers face.
Now, as for remittances: now there's an interesting topic for debate. Remittances do indeed support foreign economies. I just met a woman at the bus stop last week who won't visit her home country of Jamaica (as she and her husband do every year) until the gang violence dies down. Gang violence? Yes, apparently there is a direct correlation between gang violence and the depressed US economy - jobs down = remittances down = increased poverty = increased violence. I've read in the WSJ about similar conditions in Mexico and El Salvador, where remittances are perhaps as much as 20% of the economy.
Do you think that's fair? Should "they" really be coming here and taking "our" money and sending it over "there"? Well, if you believe that a person has a right to do whatever they please with their hard-earned cash, then yes, they do. If not, then perhaps we should encourage companies to hire more US workers. OK, those may SEEM like valid points, but they still don't strike at the heart of the issue that these remittances improve lives and increase stability, both political and economic stability.
Again, our ire goes back to our centrism, our refusal to believe that any country outside our borders has any right to the life that we enjoy, but as we've seen over the past two decades (the time in which most in this class have grown up) is that instability outside our borders affects the stability at home.
and so here I am going to make the giant leap and state that IF we want to decrease illegal immigration, then the only true path is to ensure that ALL countries Central America (including Mexico) have economies that provide their citizens exactly what ours provides us, and that includes: livable wages, health insurance, a Fair Labor Standards Board, and governments that actually provide for the needs of their citizens instead of just sucking the wealth. I know our first instinct is "We've got our own troubles" or "They should take care of themselves" but truly, truly, truly, follow the logic:
The Rationality Principle: A Mexican or Central American will never leave his/her home, face dismemberment from falling off a train, getting robbed or knifed by a Coyote or Narco, shot in the back by a Minuteman, or death by dehydration in the Arizona desert, IF they have their BASIC NEEDS MET AT HOME. By ensuring economic stability in the region, all our immigration questions will be ameliorated.
It's not popular, and I'm not calling for military intervention or anything of the sort, I just wanted to put it out there for debate. I hope I haven't severely offended anybody, but if I have, please please forgive me.
And for those of you who have read through this whole thing, I say, God BLESS YOU, thank you, and good night!

Someone's Kindle at Booth 3

Looking over your shoulder, I see what you are reading on your kindle, as you sit there, silent, at Booth 3, and what you are reading is from the collection of poety simply titled 364, and the number is:



254.

The flags are at half staff today:
this day, this date,

pushed into an unintended
holi
day
of

mourning for the
loss of
the illusion
of our
own invincibility.

Overheard at Table 4

Niall Carter: OK, so is he going to burn the stupid Koran or not, already?

Hugh Mann: Looks like he's not.

Niall Carter: Well, that's good. Like we need more people on our case for being small minded simpletons.

Hugh Mann: You wanna talk the weirdest thing, I swear to you I heard him on the radio yesterday, they played a clip, he said, (and I'm trying my best to quote here): "The Imam has given me reassurances that he is going to build the mosque a few blocks further away, and so I have decided against my demonstration. We don't want his mosque there, and he doesn't want us to burn Korans!"

John Steppenwolf: What a loon!

Niall: Yeah, you're saying a preacher out in Gainesville Florida with a congregation of fifty people really thinks he stood down a guy who owns half of Fox News?

John: Plus, this is New York! It takes years to build - the permits, the planning,

Niall: the schmoozing!

John: Yeah, the schmoozing!

Hugh: Nice use of Yiddish when talking about an Imam!

Niall: Why thank you!

John: It's not like he can just up and move the dang thing.

Hugh: And of course, the radio played a clip of the Iman saying, "We never said that! Don't know where he got THAT idea!"

John: Good Lord, no wonder the world thinks we're all crazy! The rest of the world's nutcases get quietly "taken care of" while our nutcases get personal calls from the Secretary of State, press, and several mentions in presidential speeches.

Hugh: Well, when you think of it - I suppose, for all his nuttiness, at least that something that makes this country great. In other countries, they'd have put a bullet in his brain.

Niall: Bring us your tired, your poor, your nutjobs.

John: Yeah, but it certainly brings us the most colorful characters! And who said this decade wasn't starting off interesting?!

Overheard at Table 1

Hugh Mann: You know, I really hate how our President has to go in front of the American people and keep rubbing our noses in the past decade.

Adele Mishka: Absolutely, I agree, I mean, when's he gonna take responsibility for this mess.

Hugh: I didn't say this mess was his responsibility - everyone knows that it was letting the big banks and corporations get away with raping the American public - what I hate is that he has to keep REMINDING us about it.

Adele: You mean you don't understand that his policies aren't helping?

Hugh: No, what I mean is that he can't fix in two years what took eight to screw up! And it really galls me that the American people want it all fixed at the drop of a hat. What a bunch of mewling sacrosanct lazybones morons we are!

Adele: Hey, man, you're talking about the best country in the world!

Hugh: Did I say we weren't? I said we're a bunch of mewling sacrosanct lazybones morons . . . but we're still better than all the others!

Adele: Well . . . only so long as you never forget it!

Joni Mitchell's Sailing to Byzantium

Joni Mitchell is on the small stage, singular, only her voice and the acoustic guitar, singing a song that I don't believe she has ever performed live, much less solo - a song whose lyrics are taken from WB Yeats' poem "Sailing to Byzantium"

and all the English majors in the room close their eyes and sway their heads as they sing along:

Turning and turning
Within the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart
The centre cannot hold
And a blood dimmed tide
Is loosed upon the worldNothing is sacred
The ceremony sinks
Innocence is drowned
In anarchy

The best lack conviction

Given some time to think

And the worst are full of passion

Without mercy

Surely some revelation is at hand

Surely it's the second coming

And the wrath has finally taken form

For what is this rough beast

Its hour come at last

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born

Hoping and hoping

As if with my weak faith

The spirit of this world

Would heal and rise

Vast are the shadows

That straddle and strafe

And struggle in the darkness

Troubling my eyes

Shaped like a lion

It has the head of a man

With a gaze as black

And pitiless as the sun

As it's moving its slow thighs

Across the desert sands

Through dark indignant

Reeling falcons

Surely some revelation is at hand

Surely it's the second coming

And the wrath has finally taken form

For what is this rough beast

Its hour come at last

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born

(Head of a man, shape of a lion)

Raging and raging

It rises from the deep

Opening its eyes

After twenty centuries

Vexed to a nightmare

Out of a stony sleep

By a rocking cradle

By the Sea of Galilee

Surely some revelation is at hand

Surely it's the second coming

And the wrath has finally taken form

For what is this rough beast

Its hour come at last

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born

(Head of a man, shape of a lion)

And the English majors (Marjo among them), as Ms. Mitchell bows her head in reverence to the impact of her song, move among the audience, distributing well-worn copies of the Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats, each with a page marked to this poem:

The Second Coming (Sailing to Byzantium)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming!

Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

1920

Overheard at Table Three

Goodness, I do believe Jon Stewart was right! Again!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129584557


Isn't it sad when the only honest news we can get these days comes from a comedian?


The so-called "serious" stations are a joke, and the jokers are talking seriously.

Reminds me of something that used to happen in courts of the kings - the kings got to the point where they couldn't trust their advisors, because each one had an agenda, and could only trust the court jester, because they were the only ones with the freedom to tell it like it is!

We've reached that level.

God help us all!

Overheard at Booth 4

Billy: heard they blew up a mosque that was being built somewhere outside Virginia.

Joe: it was around there, was it Richmond?

Jim: upstate New York, some people interrupted prayers, chanting Islamic Mo-fos, go home.

Bob: some lady on the radio, said that she was glad they blew it up, saying they are all al-quaida and bombed our country.

Billy: but they ain't - they all ain't.

Joe: but they do follow a false religion.

Jim: but that don't mean they don't have the right to live in peace.

Bob: we all got that right.

Billy: but they shouldn't be building their center on top of the where the towers was.

Joe: but they ain't, it's a few blocks away.

Jim: the way I see it, ain't their fault, it's the fault of whover sold 'em the property. They's just acting like good capitalists - buying whatever they got the money for.

Bob: and how they get so much money?

Billy: we be buying they oil. That's how they got so rich.

Joe: heard on Jon Stewart the guy who's financing the building owns part of Fox News.

Jim: this the same Fox News who called him an evil terrorist?

Bob: something like that. Maybe they hate their boss.

Billy: maybe it's all this Fox News what's stirred up the people enough to start bombing
mosques and shooting at islamics and harassing them at their services.

Joe: corner store attendants are being beaten up for wearing turbans.

Jim: dang! Turbans ain't even islam, turbans be from India!

Bob: shoot, we just gettin' mad at everybody. Can't even tell who we hate any more, we just be hatin' !

Billy: you know, I just can't help but thinkin' that we always say we don't want them over here because they bombed our towers and we always look at their countries and we say thank God we ain't like them because they always killin' and blowin' stuff up, right?

Joe: right.

Jim: well, if we don't like them 'cause they're always shootin' and blowin' stuff up . . .

Bob: . . . and then if we start shootin' and blowin' stuff up.

Billy: then we'll make this country just like their countries. We'll make this country the thing that we was afraid THEY would make this country.

Joe: that would mean the terrorists have won, don't you think.

Jim: dang, talk about irony!

Bob: you said it, brother!