DUBYA MUST BE IN A UNION

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" We engage in pleasant chit-chat about how, in America today, the few are enriched by the sweat of the many.

Today's topic: Where Were You at 12:01 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, May 11? We're doing a random sampling, including the local weather.

For those of you who don't follow the news, at 12:01 EDT, an unidentified Cessna aircraft strayed into airspace over the nation's capital, causing mass evacuations at the Senate, Congress, the White House, and other federal buildings. Turns out the pilot was just learning how to fly and wanted to see the Washington Monument from the air.

Where were you?

Anne Johnson (author of blog): Working diligently and ardently, fuming over the fact that she makes 1/2 as much for the same amount of work as she did in 1993. (Weather outside, sunny, 75 degrees.)

Sri Lankan teenager (factory labor, My Scene Dolls): Sleeping like the dead after a 14-hour shift at 23 cents an hour. Was too tired to indulge in "turtle dove love" or eat his rice. (Weather outside: warm and rainy)

Ugandan child (sold into slavery): Too scared to sleep after a first encounter with sexual molestation. (Weather outside: hot and dry)

Utah female, 36 (Wal-Mart checker): Being disciplined for coming to work late after having to shovel out car from snowdrift. Silently thanking God that she didn't take that index card from the Union organizer in the parking lot. Wondering how she's going to pay for her daughter's strep throat medication. (Weather outside, snow flurries)

Baltimore female, 73 (seamstress): Recovering from pneumonia brought on by botched surgery, wondering which is most important this month, food or heart medicine, can't buy both. (Weather outside, 78 and sunny)

Indianapolis male, 25 (construction): Watching clock, hungry as a bear after a long morning building McMansions. (Weather outside, cool and windy, possible showers)

Laura Bush (First Lady): Tucking into a light snack of Twinkies and Hi-C with former First Lady Nancy Reagan in the White House dining room. (Weather outside, 78 and sunny)

Dick Cheney (Vice President): Briefing corporate CEOs on the latest methods to streamline the American workforce through "revised head counts"; pondering ways to deal a final death blow to all labor unions; hearing anonymous big-time pay-to-play fundraisers' latest ideas on smoke-screening important issues with meaningless "morality" debates that distract voters and let them feel like they're electing people who will serve them and not Big Business. (Weather not a factor, he's in the War Room)

George "Dubya" Bush (Commander in Chief of Armed Forces, Leader of the Free World): Out riding his bike in a nature preserve. (Weather outside: sunny, 78 degrees, splendid)

WHO BESIDES ME IS TIRED OF THIS? COME ON, AMERICA! SPEAK UP! Be honest. Were you either working, taking a truncated lunch break, or worrying about your bills at 12:01 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 11?

The president just over half of you voted for (not me, muchachas!) was doing one of two things:

He was either playing hooky from important duties like writing letters to war widows, or ...

He was lubricating the old fund-raising machine with a little leisurely bike ride among fat cats.

GET UP! STAND UP! STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS!

Anne? Get to work, you have work to do, you have bills to pay and less money to pay them with than ever.

Princeton filibusterists? Write to Corzine and demand action on Uganda.

Kept women? Stop buying those My Scene Dolls until they pay those kids in Sri Lanka a living wage for an eight-hour day.

Wal-Mart checker? TAKE THAT UNION CARD AND SIGN IT. PERSUADE ALL YOUR CO-WORKERS TO DO THE SAME.

Construction worker? We've got enough goddamn McMansions eating up farmland. Go rehab the city housing, make it shine!

Laura Bush? Count the silverware.

Dick Cheney? Please give your prescription heart medication to the lady in Baltimore. She can't afford it. And then, with all due dispatch, let Mother Nature take her course with you. You are an ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.

Dubya? Set your bike on a course following the setting sun. Keep riding. And riding. And riding. Don't come back. No one will miss you. YOU'RE THE WORST PRESIDENT WE'VE HAD IN OFFICE SINCE WARREN HARDING!

Folks, I really hate to point this out, but at least Bill Clinton was at his desk when he and Monica were going at it. Who rides bikes at noon on a Wednesday, except for corrupt Union workers who get mob-guaranteed salaries for doing nothing all day? IS THAT YOU, DUBYA? YOU A UNION MAN?

And to think I started this blog to talk about religion!
ANNE JOHNSON