Don't Get Tunisia On Me

Children of Mad Wisconsin
Gather in the square
Refusing to wear their underwear

Promises to voters
The workers be damned
Strike if you like
Let politicians ham

Minority pols are on the lam
Holed up in hotels
Watching C Span

Concessions offered
But are they enough
The deficit’s written
In taxpayers’ blood

The weaker Govs
Who helped make this mess
Nowhere to be found
As this goes to press

Gov Walker unswerving
Has the law under heel
But is this change
An old or new deal

Triumphant Arabs
Your day in Sun
Know that your battles
Have just begun

Don Arrup
Saitre1

Egypt

Since there was only one story briefly interrupted by the Super Bowl but which has now resolved into a military democratic dictatorship caliphate Satire1 looks at how the newspapers and programs portrayed the struggle.

New York Times
Protestors Continue Pressure For Health Care Reform

Wall Street Journal
Protestors Riot Over Regulations

Tobacco Times
Arab Protests Continue Over Hookah Ban

Tea Party Tattler
Cairo Tax Party Continues

National Enquirer
Mummies Join Egyptian Protestors In Streets

MSNBC
Obama Overthrows Mubarak

FOX NEWS
Obama Assumes Presidency In Egypt

Jewish Times
Obama Abandons Loyal Tyrant

Don Arrup
Satire1

The Ides Of February

As if being single wasn’t hard enough
Romantic misadventures
Replay in opaque fuzz
More forgotten than felt
Only the confusion is clear

Pretty faces, vulnerable eyes
Haunt me this quiet morn
But their accumulation
Dissipates them
There is no One
Thank god

So I miss nobody
Her absence much easier to endure
And her wrath no more
Than the general ache of being alive

Perhaps this is reason to celebrate
The Ides of February
Another Valentine’s survived

Don Arrup
Satire1

Baltimore Joins MidEast Upheaval

The City of Baltimore, Maryland broke out in massive demonstrations as students and taxi drivers faced off with police in the streets of the downtown area over a host of issues that has had commentators referring to Charm City as the “Tunisia of the West.”

As the port city to the Old Line State of Maryland whose northern border with Pennsylvania constitutes the Mason Dixon Line or division of North and South going back to colonial times Baltimore is literally the Middle East of the United States.

A long failing public school system, increasing unemployment, extreme weather, a disappointing Ravens playoff run and the near impossibility of singles to get laid has the population near the breaking point.

“This city was as hot as Iraq last summer and now we’re living on the North Pole and the Governor has refused to act.”

Complaints that politicians allowed HBO to abandon “The Wire” in favor of a New Orleans based series is interpreted by many as the final straw in the decline of the city.

“New Orleans isn’t even America. Only Europeans listen to jazz and where the hell are the guns?”

“The Steelers stole that Division playoff game. We were whipping their butt until the local officials pumped stupid gas into the Visitors locker room at halftime and the mayor didn’t even protest.”

“I’ve heard rumors they’re putting celery in crab cakes in New York and calling them Maryland Crab Cakes.”
Editor’s Note: This rumor has been confirmed.

Drug dealers complain that they can’t find high school graduates with enough proficiency in division and subtraction to carry out proper drug deals and many recent graduates haven’t had enough science education to even use a book of matches.

Maryland State law gives tenure to public school teachers after only two years and parents feeling their children’s futures are being wasted by an intractable education bureaucracy are calling on local drug kingpins to stand up for the community and have bad teachers murdered.

“Good teachers don’t need tenure. The teachers that need tenure need a bullet.”

When the kingpins declined to get involved experts reminded them that soon no graduates would be educated enough to be able to afford drugs.


Don Arrup
Satire1