The people of New Hampshire are a stubborn lot, steeped in good old New England practicality and common sense. Staying true to their character, yesterday these hearty individuals refused to follow any parade but one led by a different drummer on a horse of a different color.
In a defiantly independent move demonstrating a people who proudly proclaim, Live free or die (you miserable bastard, you!), the residents of “the granite state” gave a landside victory to Big Ol’ Slab o’ Granite for their pick in the nonhuman presidential primary.
It was stunning upset for the winner of the Iowa caucauses, bag of Fritos, and a bitter disappointment for IBM’s Watson, the super brainy computer box, huggable puppy, Santy Paws, and cute as anything monkey, Ms. Pickles. Political experts explained that the appeal of Big Ol’ Slab o’ Granite was its “unyielding platform and projection of strength under fire.” They also said people thought it would wipe up easily and look attractive for years to come.
“It’s a strange political season,” said Barry Newdimber, a noted political expert at the University of Hokey Pokey. “Stranger than bat feces on melba toast and about as tasteful.”
If Big Ol’ Slab o’ Granite promised to erect a wall of its biggest, tallest and strongest relatives along our Southern border, it might sweep up votes on the human side of the ledger as well as bury nonhuman candidates, too. Gotta keep those illegals out of the country, after all, which is a subject I’ve given a good deal of thought.
With our nation’s unemployment rate, we’ve surely got plenty of people to pick tomatoes and other farm crops in hot fields for minimum wages, so we don’t need illegals. And with our bootstrapping ethos, there must be thousands of unemployed American who see golden opportunities in the hospitality industry (as hotel maids and bellmen and as dishwashers in restaurants), not to mention the medical field (as orderlies and kitchen help).
Once we eliminate illegals, landscaping jobs would abound as well. And most Americans know landscaping inside and out, having mowed lawns, edged sidewalks and trimmed hedges since they were small children or at least teenagers. If they used to be homeowners – foreclosed homeowners – they’re landscaping experts.
There’d also be thousands of jobs in America’s slaughterhouses. But have you ever been in a slaughterhouse? It’s unlikely unemployed Americans would take these gory, messy, stinking, stomach turning jobs, no matter how desperate their family situations may be. Since that’s the case, it’s a fact that American supermarkets will no longer carry meat of any kind. So we’ll all have to become vegetarians or vegans.
Big Ol’ Slab o’ Granite will have do a lot of fast talking if this last point comes up on the campaign trail. No more meat? Becoming a vegetarian or a vegan? Many conservative pundits in America, in my opinion, would pounce on it. They’d immediately call it a socialist conspiracy. They’d say that the vegetable garden Michelle Obama planted at the White House was a harbinger of the nation’s decline and ultimate fall.
You’re paid $400,000 a year plus benefits like residence in a large mansion and your own private 747 when you’re President of the United States. When you leave office – after one or two terms – you get to build a library, and you also get a multi-million dollar book contract and speaking engagements that can make you a very rich person.
Landing the job is tough, as Big Ol’ Slab o’ Granite will discover. You’ve got to be fast on your feet, which I can’t imagine Big Ol’ Slab o’ Granite will ever be.
If I were advising Big Ol’ Slab o’ Granite, I’d politely suggest abandoning politics in favor of the more enduring field of kitchen counters.
You raise some very valid points, Curvin. A granite wall along Mexico is a pretty brilliant idea and one I think Big Ol’ Slab o’ Granite would fully embrace.
I honestly have no idea if this beautiful decorator item is suited for the job of president, but I suspect he would look wonderful on top of the desk in the oval office. If that were to happen, it would be ideal for placing hot pots, pans or global crises.
Big Ol’ Slab o’ Granite would be up for the job and perform beautifully!
Of course, Big Ol’ Slab o’ Granite would be hard on fine crystal toppling over on its unyielding surface de beauty–– they’d probably shatter! Such are the trade offs with a candidate like this.
This race just gets curiouser and curiouser.
I got to thinking yesterday. If New Hampshire is The Granite State, do other states in the U.S. have their own official state rocks and minerals? And if they do, could that lead to delegates at a political convention tossing their state’s minerals, rocks/stones and/or minerals at each other as they select a candidate?
I thought the whole idea was completely implausible, but then I asked my research associate, a young geology student who recently dropped out of Bob’s College of Knowledge, a fine institution in Connecticut, to spend some time investigating the various kinds of minerals, rocks/stones and gemstones that delegates from states that have declared allegiance to a particular mineral, rock/stone or gemstone could pick up and hurl at other delegates on the convention floor.
My research associate, by the way, is bright, hard working and eager to break into an exciting, rewarding field like advertising. I told him I’d see if I can help. You know, introduce him to the right people.
Anyway, after a long night of exhaustive work, here’s the list he gave me early this morning:
Alabama: Mineral (Hematite), Rock/Stone (Marble), Gemstone (Star Blue Quartz); Alaska: Mineral (Gold), Gemstone (Nephrite Jade); Arizona: Mineral (Copper), Gemstone (Turquoise); Arkansas: Mineral (Quartz), Rock/Stone (Bauxite), Gemstone (Diamond); California: Mineral (Gold), Rock/Stone (Serpentine), Gemstone (Benitoite); Colorado: Mineral (Rhodochrosite), Rock/Stone (Yale Marble), Gemstone (Aquamarine); Connecticut: Mineral (Almandine Garnet), Rock/Stone (Brownstone); Delaware: Mineral (Sillimanite); Florida: Rock/Stone (Agatized Coral), Gemstone (Moonstone); Georgia: Mineral (Staurolite), Gemstone (Quartz); Hawaii: Gemstone (Black Coral); Idaho: Gemstone (Star Garnet) plus, of course, the common potato; Illinois: Mineral (Fluorite); Indiana: Rock/Stone (Salem Limestone); Iowa: Rock/Stone (Quartz Geode); Kentucky: Mineral (Coal), Rock/Stone (Kentucky Agate), Gemstone (Freshwater Pearl); Louisiana: Gemstone (Agate); Maine: Gemstone (Tourmaline); Maryland: Gemstone (Patuxent River Stone Agate); Massachusetts: Mineral (Babingtonite), Rock/Stone (Roxbury Puddingstone), Gemstone (Rhodonite); Michigan: Rock/Stone (Petoskey Stone, a fossilized coral), Gemstone (Chlorastrolite aka Isle Royale Greenstone); Minnesota: Gemstone (Lake Superior Agate); Mississippi: Rock/Stone (Petrified Wood); Missouri: Mineral (Galena aka lead), Rock/Stone (Mozarkite); Montana: Gemstone (Montana Sapphire and Montana Agate); Nebraska: Rock/Stone (Prairie Agate), Gemstone (Blue Agate); Nevada: Mineral (Silver), Rock/Stone (Sandstone), Gemstone (Black Fire Opal, Turquoise); New Hampshire: Mineral (Beryl), Rock/Stone (Granite), Gemstone (Smoky Quartz); New Mexico: Gemstone (Turquoise); New York: Gemstone (Garnet); North Carolina: Mineral (Gold), Rock/Stone (Granite), Gemstone (Emerald); Ohio: Gemstone (Ohio Flint); Oklahoma: Rock/Stone (Barite aka Rose Rock); Oregon: Rock/Stone (Thunderegg Agate), Gemstone (Oregon Sunstone Labradorite); Rhode Island: Mineral (Bowenite Serpentine), Rock/Stone (Cumberlandite); South Carolina: Rock/Stone (Blue Granite), Gemstone (Amethyst); South Dakota: Gemstone (Fairburn Agate); Tennessee: Rock/Stone (Limestone and Tennessee Paint Rock Agate), Gemstone (Tennessee River Pearl): and Texas: Mineral (Silver), Rock/Stone (Oligocene Petrified Palmwood), Gemstone (Texas Blue Topaz).
(If you want to beat Watson on Jeopardy, you’ll have to memorize this list.)
One can only hope that civility will reign at America’s political conventions, not only this year but for years to come. First, that hard, dangerous objects won’t start flying, and second, that the sergeant-at-arms and other burly authorities on convention floors won’t be compelled to pepper spray those who most egregiously breach the limits of peaceful decorum.
The way I see it, by the way – and I’m sure you agree with me – pepper spray has no place in an official political environment, that is, a political convention.
Pepper spray, obviously, should be reserved for use at unofficial political events where dirty, scruffy, nervy, earnest, outspoken people have gathered to protest such things as civil rights, or distant, costly wars, or economic disparity caused by unconscionable greed, all of their loud, obnoxious protests based on the belief that, in America, they have an inalienable right to raise their voices, make their opinions known and even begin effecting consequential change.
(A note about Bob’s College of Knowledge: At Bob’s, academic track students are given a library card, along with maps to libraries in the area. Bob’s has no regular classes. Its students are quizzed every year about what they’ve learned during their library studies. Some students receive Ph.D’s in just four years, saving themselves or their parents from a mountain of college debt. Not all students qualify for or are even interested in the academic track, so Bob’s offers low-cost, highly innovative programs that prepare its students to succeed in such dynamic, lucrative fields as storm door repair, lamp rewiring and Photoshopping, along with standards like carpentry, plumbing, heating/air conditioning, auto repair and, a big favorite, the art of saloon mixology.)
A most impressive dispatch, Prof. O’Rielly. I am very impressed at the research done by this student at Bob’s College of Knowledge. It certainly speaks volumes for the quality of the education that students receive from this fine organization.
By any chance, at Bob’s College of Knowledge are there ivy-covered walls? If so, the place of higher learning could become members of the “Ivy League” which seems to carry some swagger for graduates.
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with you on the use of pepper spray being reserved for the rabble. We must keep them at bay! Begin heating the caldrons of oil, say I.
I like the idea of states casting votes at conventions with their state’s official mineral/stone/gem. I think it will add some gravitas to the political process and prove that only the strong survive. A very smart suggestion!
Thanks for your ideas and getting some work out of that eager undergrad. He may indeed have a future!
The young student who did the research for me received some good news late yesterday. For his fine work on my behalf, Bob’s College of Knowledge awarded him a master’s degree in minerals, rocks/stones and gemstones. The kid’s so psyched about his future that he’s going for a Ph.D. in rock, paper, scissors, an arcane part of game theory not taught at any of the fancy Ivy League schools. (Bob’s, by the way, doesn’t have any ivy-covered walls, just a few dusty plastic plants scattered here and there.)
Congratulations to the student. His studies should serve him well in future studies in rock, paper, scissors (RPS). I am surprised that Bob’s College of Knowledge does not have an advanced degree in RPS, but I’m sure the esteemed institute of higher book learnin’ has an advanced degree in Fling, Flang, Flu studies.
You might want to plant some ivy by a wall just to see what happens. It could take Bob’s College of Knowledge to a new level of respectability.
The only green stuff that grows at Bob’s is mold.
Correction. Bountiful piles of crisp green cash come in at Bob’s College of Knowledge when new students arrive.
I’m sure an education at Bob’s College of Knowledge is even more affordable than one of those Ivy League sheepskins.
You deserve every penny you get for bringing knowledge to these young uns. I hope you also give them a good talking to, because they need that, too!