A Rational Anthem

It isn't often that I plan something well in advance, but I'm committed to attending the Albuquerque Tea Party on April 15 even if I have to find 8 miles of extension cord for my trusty chair and surrogate steed, "Old Liberty." For those in the Albuquerque area, the staging point for the demonstration will be (quite appropriately) the parking lot of Independence Grill, a block west of the intersection of Montgomery and Louisiana. For those living outside the place where Bugs Bunny always made the wrong turn, there will be a Tea Party up in Farmington from 12:00 to 1:30 PM at the Farmington Museum and Visitor's Center, and there should be on down in Las Cruces but the plans aren't final as of yet. For everyone else, check the listings for your particular state at the National Tax Day Tea Party site

On the web site devoted to the Albuquerque event, there is a request for suggestions regarding "slogan" or "motto" to add a bit of "local color" to this event. I have submitted my suggestion, which is a play on New Mexico's "unofficial" State Motto of "Land of Enchantment." My suggestion is "Land of Disenchantment with (Fill in the Blank)." Maybe "We Saved America from Bill Richardson" would work too.

I would also like to introduce each of you to a "poem" by one of my literary heroes, Ambrose Bierce, the author of such classics as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and the still-relevant The Devil's Dictionary. Bierce wrote the following poem (with a few instructions for the choir added by your humble correspondent) at the height of the Gilded Age, the first time that greed and political corruption oozed from the Capitol to flow across the nation. Over a century later, it seems as if he could have written it this morning.

A RATIONAL ANTHEM
(To the tune of "My Country 'tis of Thee" or, in the interests of international relations, "God Save the Queen")
Lyrics by Ambrose G. Bierce, 1842 - 1914?

My country 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of felony,
Of thee I sing--
Land where my fathers fried
Young witches and applied
Whips to the Quaker's hide
And made him spring.

My knavish country, thee,
Land where the thief is free,
Thy laws I love;
I love thy thieving bills
That tap the people's tills;
I love thy mob whose will's
All laws above.

Let Federal employees
And rings rob all they please
The whole year long.
Let office-holders make
Their piles and judges rake
Our coin. For Jesus' sake,
Let's all go wrong!

N.B. For those not familiar with the reasons motivating my devotion to spreading the Gospel According to Bierce, please visit Don Swaim's The Ambrose Bierce Site. This site provides an excellent introduction to the life and work of the man who, almost single-handedly, created of often copied genre now known as the psycho-drama. Should you visit that site, please be so kind as to take a look at my "A Bullet, A Grave, A Memory," a fictional account of a chance encounter in which Ambrose Bierce is invited to share a Sunday dinner with Jessie James and Billy the Kid (the part about Jessie and The Kid is true, they did share a dinner as told in the story).

"...I consider anybody a twerp who hasn't read the greatest American short story, which is 'Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' by Ambrose Bierce. It isn't remotely political. It is a flawless example of American genius, like 'Sophisticated Lady' by Duke Ellington or the Franklin stove." (Kurt Vonnegut)