By: Jerry Barksdale
I have a lot to worry about nowadays. A groundhog has homesteaded in my garden and eaten my cabbage, my chainsaw won’t crank, and I have an enlarged prostrate. And I just learned Earth will perish in 12 years. My kind of luck. That’s according to New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, alias AOC. She’s a smart woman – an intellectual – and wears big owlish glasses to prove it. Since Earth has been my only home since birth, I would like to continue living here. Aside from Bama losing the National Championship, it’s the worst news I’ve heard in a long time. The stock market will tank and real estate prices will fall. There goes my retirement.
On the positive side, it will be a good time to buy real estate, and paying alimony and having to file income tax returns will cease. Thank the Lord! As Mama used to say, “Every cloud has a silver lining.”
Privileged rich people are already planning to bug out to Mars. Elon Musk, a privileged, old, white guy billionaire is building a spaceship to fly his wealthy friends to Mars – for a hefty fee, of course. I suspect they will live in a gated community behind a wall to keep out the Martian riff-raff and pay them minimum wage to clean their space suits and tend their rock garden. Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Streisand, and Jon Stewart have been threatening to leave America for years. I’m sure they will be aboard. Cher is waiting for a ride to Jupiter. Bon Voyage to all. I would like to go, but I won’t be able to afford a ticket. Only the rich, privileged class will go. Anyway, I won’t leave Earth without my good friend, and sometime red-head, Pat. They wouldn’t let her on board with 150 pairs of shoes, 50 purses, and 25 pair of sunglasses.
Recently, Miss AOC proposed her Green New Deal to save Earth. Again, thank the Lord. She suggests we need to stop birthing babies. I agree. They are nothing but trouble. The little burping, defecating, diaper soiling snots just grow up to smoke pot, drink beer, get arrested, wreck cars, and flunk out of college. Then they cart us off to a nursing home. Zero babies can be achieved in one generation. But we may have to outlaw Viagra to accomplish it.
Miss AOC says that methane gas eliminated by cow flatulence is a major cause of climate change, which according to her, will contribute to destroying the earth in 12 years. She suggests that we should give up eating meat and become vegetarians. She’s wrong there.
Polite society doesn’t use the street term for flatulence. But folks living in Toney and Flat Rock, Alabama, may not know what a flatulence is, so I will translate. It’s a ten letter word to describe a four letter word – fart. For religious folks and English teachers, I assure you that it’s not a swear word. It’s one of the oldest words in the English language and can be used as a noun or a verb. If you feel more comfortable calling it a “poot,” “toot,” or “passing gas,” I understand. For the purpose of this white paper, and to accommodate sensitivities, I’ll call it “cut’n cheese.” There are 1.5 billion cows on Earth cut’n cheese, every day, all day long. They produce 150 billion gallons of methane a day. Holy cow! All animals cut cheese and produce methane gas: deer, bison, elk, horses, elephants, sheep, goats, all wild life – and yes, dogs. Termites are the worst offenders; even cockroaches pass gas. I’m for killing all termites and cockroaches. All cockroaches are good for is to make exterminators rich and scare women. Citizens, we have a real emergency on our hands. Humans also produce vast amounts of methane gas. The average person cuts cheese 14 times a day. Believe it or not, women cut cheese just as much as men! It’s hard to believe, but Queen Elizabeth cuts cheese. They say that Nancy Reagan did too. I doubt that Miss AOC does, even knowing the danger that methane gas poses to our survival.
Methane gas is also highly flammable. Several years ago, an Athens man cut an extra-large slice of cheese while sitting on the commode. He lit a Marlboro and blew himself up! There are over 7 ½ billion people on Earth cut’n cheese 14 times a day and producing billions of gallons of methane gas daily. Add that to billions produced by cows, animals, insects, and termites, and you can see the danger. If a critical mass is reached and someone lights up a joint – Boom! The Earth will erupt in a fiery conflagration.
I’ve laid out the problem, now what can we do to save our planet? Miss AOC says vegetarianism is the solution. Wrong. Many years ago I decided to go vegetarian and ate a diet of broccoli, beans, cabbage, etc. My stomach rebelled. I cut cheese all day and all night. My wife threatened to divorce me. I returned to eating fried chicken.
Eating vegetables produces methane gas. Cows are vegetarians. They eat grass almost exclusively, and they expel enormous amounts of methane. Solution: Feed them meat – preferably armadillos, groundhogs, dogs, and house cats. There are far too many of them. I’m especially jealous of dogs. They don’t work and don’t pay taxes or alimony. Dogs chase bikers, joggers, and mailmen, and act like they own the planet. We’re all in this crisis together. We must unite as a nation, and Congress should enact a methane tax similar to the carbon tax. The more you cut cheese, the more you pay. Similarly, if you don’t use all 14 of your daily poots, you could sell them to a rich vegetarian who lives miserably surviving on bean sprouts, pintos, and broccoli. A simple app on your phone would measure your flatulence. The tax proceeds would be used to find a solution to passing gas and help us save the planet.
We must all sacrifice. As for me, I intend to give up my favorite dinner – pork-n-beans on crackers – and cut back on poots.
A national ad campaign should be immediately launched by the Trump administration informing citizens of the danger of cut’n cheese and encourage us to cut back at least one flatulence a day – just one. We can do it. T-shirts, lapel pins, and bumper stickers would proclaim, “I’m a 13.” A National Day of Prayer and reflection should be declared. Ministers should mount their pulpit and encourage their flock to be a 13.
Another plank in Miss AOC’s Green New Deal is to guarantee an income to every American, whether they work or not. Many people will sign up for no work.
“Hey Joe, where you not working nowadays?”
“Oh, shoot I’m just lying on the couch drinking beer, watching reruns of the Three Stooges and sleeping. What about you?”
“I got an offer to not work as a taster in a pie factory. It just makes me tired thinking about it.”
“I know what ‘ye mean. I feel sorry for them fools who get up at 4 a.m. and go to a real job. Suckers.”
“Yeah buddy, I’ll drink to that.”
Some will say they should be forced to work before being paid. No way! It would be discriminatory and violate the “pursuit of happiness” clause in the Declaration of Independence. They have rights too!
Miss AOC also proposes that a rail system replace airplanes. Fine with me. I’m afraid to fly. The Air Force hasn’t weighed in on the proposal. They will probably whine that they can’t fight a war from a train. Whatever. Constructing a bridge to Hawaii will employ a lot of people, assuming that anyone will work. It has been estimated the Green New Deal will cost each household a mere $600,000. (Sounds like a green new steal). So what? It’s just paper. Print more money. Come on folks let’s get behind Miss AOC and save our planet. It’s the only one we have. I’m a 13, will you be one too? Just some thoughts from an old fart.
By: Jerry R Barksdale
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