Cynical? Moi?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Send us your gods, they won't be ignored!

Gentle reader, do I come across as cynical to you? Do I seem to have a bad attitude about my job prospects, my government, my inability to end the week with a surplus in the checking account?

All of the above might make some people cynical. But that's not why I'm cynical.

According to Rick Santorum, the (junior) senator from Pennsylvania, I'm cynical because I'm a working mother who disagrees with his new book, It Takes a Family.

Apparently, anyone who has objections to the junior senator's book is cynical.

Gosh, I guess that makes me Ebenezer Scrooge.

ANNE ISSUES SOME BAH, HUMBUGS!

1. Sending copious numbers of National Guardsmen and Army Reservists to the sands of Iraq, thereby depleting the numbers who would respond to an emergency in our country, such as those presented by big hurricanes and planes flying into skyscrapers.

BAH, HUMBUG!

2. Sending copious numbers of National Guardsmen and Army Reservists into battle abroad, scaring off possible recruits who would protect this nation in the future against emergencies such as big hurricanes and planes flying into skyscrapers.

BAH, HUMBUG!

3. Allowing the rulers of multinational corporations to become explosively, excessively rich while destroying labor unions and shipping manufacturing jobs to Third World countries.

BAH, HUMBUG!

4. Damaging the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in search of oil, a resource that will absolutely run out anyway within 100 years.

BAH, HUMBUG!

5. Cutting timber in national forests to build new homes, more homes than there are people in need of shelter.

BAH, HUMBUG!

6. Expensive commercials for medicine that costs so much that ordinary citizens can't afford to buy it.

BAH, HUMBUG!

7. Demanding that women with children get off welfare and go into the workforce, and then saying that all children should have a stay-at-home mother.

BAH, HUMBUG!

8. Bringing democracy to Islamic Middle Eastern nations while curtailing rights to privacy at home.

BAH, HUMBUG!

9. Fighting a War against Terrorism abroad instead of beefing up border security and taking closer scrutiny of those wishing to emigrate.

BAH, HUMBUG!

10. Teaching "scientific evidence" that is in truth unprovable, because it is based on religious views.

BAH, HUMBUG!

ANNE'S BIGGEST HUMBUG IS RESERVED FOR........

The notion that Americans will voluntarily help the poor, support medical research, police themselves routinely, and think beyond their personal desires toward a concept of wider community.

There you have it, Senator Rick. I am a cynic as charged. I think I'll go bite the head off a live chicken and stalk menacingly up and down Main Street, grimacing at the little kids who pass me by.

WITH GNASHING OF TEETH AND BARELY SUPPRESSED GROWLS

ANNE

THE CYNIC OF BERKELEY SPRINGS