Hee-Haww, Hee-Haww!

The donkey as political symbol stems from the 1828 presidential campaign-- during which Andrew Jackson's name was mispronounced as "Jackass" by his political opposition . Jackson proudly seized the label and began using donkeys on his campaign posters. During his presidency, cartoonists sometimes used the donkey to illustrate President Jackson's stubbornness on certain issues.

Back in this era the donkey was used as a symbol. But, as one old adage states, "That which one generation uses in moderation, the next will use to excess." Modern Democrats have proved the wisdom of this maxim. What was once a simple symbol, the donkey, has now burgeoned into complex reality, the jackass. (Some may say that while growing up we called John, our oldest brother, Jack because our dad was also named John. Thinking more deeply, however, it may have been more nuanced than that.)

Peter, Paul, &..."Shule, shule, shule-a-roo,
Shule-a-rak-shak, shule-a-ba-ba-coo.
When I saw my Sally Babby Beal,
come bibble in the boo shy Lorey."

Here is one's claimed experience of the talented Mary Travers:

"I traveled far and near, treking across all the continents, even going so far as stopping by Arecibo to listen into space; all in my quest to bring you the world's most ungrateful and low-class person. Get ready to celebrate with me because I've found her. It's Mary Travers, who after receiving a required bone marrow transplant for leukemia, insulted the person whose generosity made her survival possible:

"I had to have a bone marrow transplant. It's been a terrible year," she told me. "I just learned the donor's name is also Mary. She has two daughters. I have two daughters. See, just in case something goes wrong, you must wait a year before you can communicate with them.

...Mary laughed and added: "The problem was, I'm a lifelong Democrat. I was terrified that if she's a Republican, I could go into the voting booth and, like Dr. Strangelove, my whole brain could change around. When we finally spoke I asked her about this. There was a pause then she said, 'But I am a Republican.' So I said, 'Well, hell, I guess it's about time the Republicans did something nice for me.' "

I bet the donor got a good chuckle out of that, and as everyone knows, having a good laugh from a shot taken at you is much better than receiving a thank you from a person grateful for your life-saving kindness. It made the surgical procedure where, under anesthesia, the doctors used special, hollow needles to withdraw the liquid marrow from the back of her pelvic bones all worthwhile."1

(Dimes to doughnuts, she was a Christian, too. Heh!)



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