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Tune in for the Fry Babies
Since this is the last edition of
Letters for 2007 (where the hell DOES the time fly to?) I feel it’s
fitting to reflect on the year with some awards. Heck, everybody else does
it. Whoopi and Hugh Jackman are booked so I’m presenting my awards
myself. I promise to change t-shirts at least three times. The awards, in
keeping with my literary theme, are the Fry Babies, for the things that
got me frying in 2007.
Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve
cut the tacky opening production number (which had the cast of Hairspray
singing and dancing “Come Fry with Me,”) so we can get right down to
business.
The envelopes, please:
The Best Tap Dance Award
goes to Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, for his airport bathroom production
number, playing footsie with a cop and proving, once again, that the most
rabid anti-gay legislators are often found cowering in the closet but
having sex in public. And Larry, you got additional points for suggesting
that your foot wandered into the next stall so you could retrieve a fallen
piece of toilet paper. That’s just disgusting. Go wash your hands and
wash your mouth out while you’re at it. I don’t know where it’s
been, but I can imagine.
Similarly, the Do As I Say, Not
as I Do Award goes to the dishonorable GOP Senator David Vitter for
admitting he patronized DC area prostitutes as well as working girls in
his home district down South. As another legislator who regularly rants
against gay marriage, methinks he’s the one who is single-handedly (who
knows, he may have used two hands) defiling the sanctity of marriage.
The J. Edgar Hoover Red Dress
Award goes to Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani who has disavowed
all support for his gay friends and their equal rights. I guess he’s
forgotten just how many unattractive photos of himself in drag have been
printed in New York newspapers over the years. Now I’m not intimating
that Rudy is, in any way, gay. Only a straight man could enrage two
ex-wives with his serial divorce antics. (Oh, wait, I’m forgetting about
New Jersey’s ex-Governor McGreevy…) Well, Rudy ain’t gay. But he
sure loves to play dress up.
The Three Ring Circus Award for
Homeland Security to Ft. Lauderdale Airport staff for clearing a man
through security and onto an airplane with a monkey smuggled under his
hat. The flight attendant discovered the Marmoset sitting on the back of a
seat when she came through to offer it a complementary beverage. The
security folks must have been busy looking for Republicans tap dancing in
the bathrooms.
The Things Go Better with Coke
Award to Lindsay Lohan, representing all the starlets who are trashing
their reputations and blowing through their careers (no pun intended) when
other deserving actors who would value their reputations don’t get a
shot. Just because she starred in Herbie Fully Loaded doesn’t mean she
has to walk around that way. The woman actually entered rehab as a PR
stunt. Didn’t she get the Anna Nicole memo?
The Road to Hell Award to
DelDOT for consciously but unconscionably starting Route One construction
in August so they could be finished by June. What were they thinking???
Around here, August is worth two Junes. There are people who set out for
the beach in August who are living in Smyrna now because that’s as close
as they could get.
The Unibomber Anti-Technology
Luddite Award to Sussex County Council for not encouraging homeowners
to conserve energy by installing windmills in their blustery back yards.
Energy-saving companies are partnering with energy conscious homeowners
and their requests to install residential windmills have been turned down.
It happened to my neighbors and we’re going to be next. There’s so
much hot air in my backyard you’d think I’d been pontificating on the
porch.
The It Would Be Funny if It
Didn’t Hurt So Much Award goes to President Bush and the Culture of
Corruptions (great name for a boy band). They block kids health care, help
the insurance lobby provide us with crappy private coverage, then decry
the evils of Socialized Medicine—all while enjoying free,
government-provided doctor’s appointments and trips to the government
pharmacy for free Viagra (see first two awards). If that’s not a
well-functioning system of socialized medicine I’m the uncle of that
monkey who boarded the plane in Florida.
The New Orleans Gumbo Dumbo
Award to FEMA for staging a fake news conference about the California
fires and asking fluffball questions like “Is FEMA doing a heckuva job
here or what!?” Their own staff asked glowing questions and gave glowing
answers in a post-apocalyptic FEMA attempt at looking competent in an
emergency. We want Brownie back….
And finally, the Give Me a
Reason it’s not Treason Award (also known as the Go Take a Leak
Award) goes to Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to
Vice President Cheney, found guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury
for outing CIA agent Valerie Plame. All smarmy obfuscation tactics aside,
Mr. Libby, as fall-guy for Rove, Cheney et al actually aided and abetted
the enemy by outing Plame, and putting other operative’s lives in
danger. For Homeland Security? No…Politics, for frying outloud! Why
aren’t they all in jail?
And now, the 2008 Humanitarian
Achievement Awards are:
First, the Windmills Of My Mind
Award to local activist Pat Gearity for marshalling the troops, making
sport of the utilities, blasting us with e-mail, and fighting the electric
and coal companies to push for off-shore wind power in Sussex County. You
go girl….I hope that next year, when we’re talking about offshore
windmills we will give you the Passing Wind Award…
And finally, the You Can Keep
Your Head When All About Are Losing Theirs Award to Steve Elkins and
Murray Archibald for being calm, mature and professional when faced with
the Community Center construction delay. The two of them made sure that we
remained focused and faced the issue with proper patience. In fact, this
has been the hallmark of their management style as they have worked for
decades, first to help build a diverse community in Rehoboth and now to
help make sure our community grows and thrives. Thanks, boys and I realize
the editor may want to cut this award out claiming it as too “self
serving,” but I am serving these awards up, fellas, not you. Thanks for
all you do…and so well, too.
In closing, we want to thank our
Letters advertisers, for making these awards possible. We’re out of
time, so we won’t do our finale—Marie Osmond singing “Fry Me to the
Moon.” See you right here next year.
Fay Jacobs is the author of As I Lay Frying—a Rehoboth
Beach Memoir and Fried & True—Tales from Rehoboth Beach. Contact her
at www.fayjacobs.com.
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