Jeff McCallum

I guess I cann't help it. I guess the following is not really a poem, more like a sad statement on the recent hearings on toy safety. Mattel in the hot seat instead of Bush and Cheney. It's almost priceless.

Oh, it's important, and I mean that.  It's timely too. Months after the fact, right after the Iraq report, shucks, almost on 9/11, and just following the soon forgotten aniversery of whatever that storm was called somewhere down south sometime back.

Toy Land

The Chinese are a threat of course

like Iran only bigger

no pun intended

slipping chemical weapons right under our noses

High ranking Chinese officials sat at the hearing

none testified about the plot

The Senator had had a long talk with them earlier

touching on their bloated product safety program

210,000 employees

Hah!

we have only 500

including Bob

in charge of toys

and Clarice

in charge of body armor

One of them must have been at the dentist

the day defective body armor shipped

the other

the day the 20,000 contaminated containers slipped though customs

even the almost1% of them inspected by our good friends

The Department of Homeland Security

no pun intended

So

who really has the time

to see if Jr. is ingesting lead paint

we’re busy looking for bombs somewhere

well

everywhere

for that matter

looking so hard

some people hallucinate

imagine them in the strangest places

cause all kinds of people

all kinds of inconvenience trying to find them

We’re busy

trying to sneak the ownership of our ports into questionable filthy rich glad hands

busy

making certain bin Laden’s family is safely out of the country

no pun intended

where they can do no harm

to the Homeland

We're especially busy

trying to learn the new math

where 130,000 minus some number

plus Black Water

divided by voters in red states with more than ten

electoral votes

plus Halliburton et al

equals 130,000

which is somewhat less than it was before

it was 130,000

It’s a matter of priorities see

Let Mattel take the fall

while we keep the war machine grinding and gnashing

keep up the appearance of a viable economy

a concern for our citizens

especially those in the gulf states

no pun intended

dazzle them with our footwork

so they don’t see

that lead paint isn’t all

that’s killing our children