by Justice Putnam

Created on: October 09, 2007

FOR THE GENERAL GOOD

(Under every stone lurks a politician.

- Euripides)

I thought the State had no need for my services any longer. But a Certain Member of the Assembly visited a few days ago with a message from the Forum Of One Leader.

"The FOOL requires your expertise," the Certain Member of the Assembly pleaded, using the jargon peculiar to all bureaucrats through all of history, "without your special talent, the People will remain unconvinced and the Assembly will not act. Only you can report the Good News of all that has been done for the General Good!"

An Appropriations Bill was stalled because the People were only hearing negative reporting from the Just Deserts region. It was on all the news. The Forum Of One Leader had decided to silence his critics once and for all, so he recalled my commission and brought me Back On Board.

A good decision, I might add, because that not only makes me one of the BOB's, I am also a Brownie. You see, I was once the head of the Federal Emergency Manipulation Agency, otherwise known as FEMA. Our task was to communicate how to make lemonade. Life and Government throw many things our way. So it is important that the People can find the pony; that they know at least it's a dry heat; and if bridges are to be mended, what better time than during a flood?

"It's not necessary to fly to the Just Deserts region," I said to the Certain Member of the Assembly, "I only need to address all 135,000 of the Brownies."

"How does the Superdome sound?" the Certain Member of the Assembly asked.

"Super!" I responded.

The next day I'm at the 50-yard line of the Superdome surrounded by a sea of brown; not a brown like the muddy Mississippi. No, this was a crisp, ironed and buttoned-down sea of brown. Everyone wore brown shoes, everyone wore brown slacks, (brown skirts for the girls and women, of course!) and most important, everyone wore a brown shirt.

Anyone could wear brown shoes, or brown slacks; but only a Brownie is allowed to wear a brown shirt. A Brownie takes a kind of blood oath. In the beginning, the FOOL's loyalists were called brown-noses for what critics said was the obvious ass-kissing that allowed the FOOL to govern as he did. But the Federal Emergency Manipulation Agency went into action and issued brown shirts to the loyalists in response. A Press Briefing was organized and the first ritual ass kissing was broadcast. About 70 loyalists, on bended knee, kissed the ass of the FOOL and then donned their brown shirt.

Now a Brownie gets his

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