Archie's America! ( የ አርቺ አሜሪካ) ~ by Hénock Gugsa

 

Archie's America!

 😀 ( የ አርቺ አሜሪካ ) 😂 

 by  Hénock Gugsa

 

Latest on COVID-19 ~ by TPO

Latest on COVID-19 

 by TPO

In case you haven't seen this, it has now gone viral !  An Ethiopian traditional song and dance move now has new application (use) in a video message !!! 

😁 ... 💚💛❤️

Sinners' Final Group Assignations - by R A

Sinners' Final Group Assignations 

- by Rowan Atkinson -

How are you? / እንደምን ነሽ ? ~ by Hénock Gugsa (ሄኖክ ጉግሣ)

How are you?  / እንደምን ነሽ ? * 

~ by Hénock Gugsa (ሄኖክ  ጉግሣ) ~

💙 💙 💙

The little poem (ditty) inside the purple box is a funny, flirtatious (sometimes outrageously), somewhat political, and certainly satirical product from the mind of a restless modern day man in Ethiopia!
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* Editor's note: The poem (ditty) was emailed to me without attribution to any author. // የግጥሙ ደራሲ ስም ሳይገለፅ ነው  ግጥሙ የተላከልኝ ።

[ Click inside the purple area to enlarge. ]

J & K Heinz's Wedding and the mock Divorce! - by TPO

  This is it! .... From 2009... the actual wedding of

Jill Peterson & Kevin Heinz

and the satirical mock divorce video by indigoprod actors   ...  

A White House Fiasco - by Hénock Gugsa

A White House Fiasco 

- by Hénock Gugsa -
[Click inside the box below to enlarge.]

The Republicans' Vision Thing - by Andy Borowitz

The Republicans' Vision Thing *

===== ~~~~ =====

G.O.P. Unveils Immigration Plan: “We Must Make America Somewhere No One Wants to Live”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell unveiled his party’s long-awaited plan on immigration on Wednesday, telling reporters, “We must make America somewhere no one wants to live.”

Appearing with House Speaker John Boehner, McConnell said that, in contrast to President Obama’s “Band-Aid fixes,” the Republican plan would address “the root cause of immigration, which is that the United States is, for the most part, habitable.”

“For years, immigrants have looked to America as a place where their standard of living was bound to improve,” McConnell said. “We’re going to change that.”

Boehner said that the Republicans’ plan would reduce or eliminate “immigration magnets,” such as the social safety net, public education, clean air, and drinkable water.

The Speaker added that the plan would also include the repeal of Obamacare, calling healthcare “catnip for immigrants.”

Attempting, perhaps, to tamp down excitement about the plan, McConnell warned that turning America into a dystopian hellhole that repels immigrants “won’t happen overnight.”

“Our crumbling infrastructure and soaring gun violence are a good start, but much work still needs to be done,” he said. “When Americans start leaving the country, we’ll know that we’re on the right track.”

In closing, the two congressional leaders expressed pride in the immigration plan, noting that Republicans had been working to make it possible for the past thirty years.
______________________________

* Source: Andy Borowitz (a news satire columnist, The New Yorker) - http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/republicans-unveil-immigration-plan

Putting an Idiot in His Place - by The Great Colbert

Putting an Idiot in His Place

 by 
The Great Colbert *

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,The Colbert Report on Facebook,Video Archive

*The Colbert Report (Stephen Colbert)
"Auction for Bill O'Reilly's Stolen Microwave"
(February, 2014)

Tësh-lok-lâki-wotch [The Slitherers!] - by Dr. Fikré Tolossa

(click on image to enlarge)
 
[The Slitherers!]

 

Tësh-lok-lâki-wotch 
by Dr. Fikré Tolossa *

=== ~~ === ~~ ===

Engulfed by Terror's raging flames,
As we slither  and glibly side-wind,
No blaze or flicker ever touches us.
We pay no mind to revolution's lightening,
While senseless chaos scatters
And displaces the innocent
We continue to slumber in our own silence.
We are camped inside the flames,
And we know how to feint, how to deceive
Until the burning blaze is cooled.
And when the soot breaks down
And the sound and the fury subside;
When the sky and the air are clear and safe,
We raise our heads and announce our presence:
"Here we are! We're tested. We are ready to serve!"
And all the while we care not a whit
whether we are summoned or not.

The fools, and the guileless
They've fallen by the wayside
Or else have gone to nothingness
Or ended up in exile
Or slaughtered under Terror's rule.
The few survivors still clamor: "Conscience, oh Conscience!"
They beg and cry out: "Justice! Truth! Liberty!"
Yet they loath power, they find it too dirty,
They'd rather watch from the sidelines.
But we're smart and quick on our feet
And we climb and take hold of the reins
Paying lip service to absence of chains.

Lying in wait for our victims
We're scheming and plotting
The best ways to stir up the naif
Dooming them to death or misery.
No sympathy or conscience have we
As we step heavily o'er the blood-stained ground.
We monitor society's vital signs,
We take its temperature, its pulse.
We herd and prod the fools to the fire,
We use them as torches
To illumine our paths and freshen our lives.

The guileless are our shield.
And sitting astride our horse of power,
We ride fast as the wind.
The virtuous and the truthful are trampled as dust.

We usurp the voice of the masses
When it damn well suits us;
But we know when to shout out in our own
And when to come out of our caves.

We will prattle till our neck veins stick out
We'll talk non-stop till our mouths are frothy.
Talk and talk is all we do all day
And we only know how to naysay!

Woe to the whistle-blowers
Woe to honest public servants
Should they attempt to uncover us
Should we be bravely denounced.
We've got the temperament, skill, and speed
To deal with these finger-pointers.
They won't know what hit them.

We have ... special ... merchandising talents
We know how to mine public outrage
How to exploit the masses' sentiments.
It is our occupation ... squelching the weak
But we take smart care with the strong.

While havoc-n-melee rules mankind,
We make sure to stay spared.
But even more, we stay focused
Whoever or whatever is in power.
We will more than survive
We'll prosper and flourish.

The heroic farmer will slave and toil at his farm
But at harvest time ... will he then profit?
Nay, not he. It is we who prosper
Without fear, without batting an eye.

All comforts of life are given to us
The world is indeed at our feet!
No place here for the virtuous,
For he who burns for "truth, justice, and liberty!"

_____________________________________

* Free verse translation by  Hénock Gugsa

Afterword by HG - 
The above poem by Dr. Tolossa is obviously of great significance and meaning to the people of Ethiopia ... especially those who directly suffered fifteen plus years of misery under Mengistu and his minions. What struck me keenly was the intensity of the cynicism, the irony, and the sociopathic glee of the ruling class. Yes, they were there even under communism, and they are still around us even here in the land of the free! 

It is a bitter and dismally universal reality:   
Negativity and selfishness are the bane of humanity!

Thank you, Dr. Tolossa, for forever opening our eyes and showing us some of humanity's unpleasant natures. Through your poem, you've given voice and immortality to our tragedy. And, in my opinion, you have done it as effectively as the old masters, Orwell and Solzhenitsyn.

GOP's Fairy Tales (Doonesberry/03302014) - by Garry Trudeau

GOP's Fairy Tales 

(Doonesberry/03302014) 

 by Garry Trudeau *

(click on comic strip to enlarge)

* Garry Trudeau is creator of Doonesberry.  It is America's  preeminently "articulate, abrasive, political, compassionate, misunderstood, misprinted, and outrageous"comic serial.

Opus [Opus' Worst Fear] - by Berkley Breathed

Opus [Opus' Worst Fear] *

~~~~~ // ~~~~~

by Berkley Breathed

(Click on comic strip to enlarge)

* Opus (May  21,2006) - by Berkley Breathed

A Simpler Time - by The Onion

A Simpler Time

by

The Onion *

=== // === // === // ===

[ Nation Recalls Simpler Time When ... ]

WASHINGTON—With the Affordable Care Act now making it possible for a greater number of Americans to purchase medical coverage, the nation looked back this week and fondly recalled a simpler time when its health care system was broken beyond any hope of repair.

Describing a more innocent period in the country’s history—before opponents of the act temporarily shut down the government, and before the disastrous rollout of the new insurance exchanges led to widespread public exasperation—citizens shared with reporters their warm memories of what they called a bygone golden era.

“Back then, if you couldn’t afford health insurance and got really sick, you went bankrupt, plain and simple,” said Dominique Otis, a Modesto, CA mother of three. “They didn’t have this whole mess of lower-cost options, or all these subsidies you might or might not qualify for based on your income. People didn’t have to deal with any of those headaches. They just went ahead and died of preventable causes.”

“Those were the good old days, ya know?” she added with a sigh.

According to nostalgic sources, there was a time when Americans who lost their jobs and the benefits that came with them simply went without insurance, and that was that. During this halcyon age there was reportedly no way anyone who was out of work could afford health care, and if people had a serious preexisting condition, they knew for certain they would never again qualify for decent coverage.

Harkening back to that less complicated past, citizens noted, for example, how parents who had no way to pay for their newborn baby’s much-needed surgery never even bothered getting their hopes up, but simply accepted that their child would never have a first birthday party.

As they spoke with reporters, many Americans reminisced about the comfort they once took in the predictable dysfunction of this status quo.

“When I had esophageal cancer and needed $180,000 worth of treatments not covered by my health plan, I knew immediately I’d lose my house,” said 58-year-old Tobias Czwerda of Braintree, MA, who smiled as he flipped through snapshots of the Christmas he and his family spent in a homeless shelter. “Yes, sir, things were simpler then. You knew in advance that no matter how much you argued with your insurance company, in the end it would always come down to the same two options: pay or die.”

“Call me old-fashioned, but there was something reassuring in that,” he added.

In a Gallup poll conducted this month, 72 percent of respondents agreed that even though the health care system had consistently screwed them over in the old days, at least they had known exactly where they stood. In addition, 65 percent said that while the most expensive illnesses were effectively a death sentence back then, there had been a certain peace of mind in knowing that if you ever got that sick, you would soon be gone and not have to worry about the hospital bills.

Furthermore, 89 percent of Americans confirmed they had taken some small solace in the fact that if they needed money for a life-saving operation, they could always tape a photocopied image of themselves to a collection jar, place it in a local supermarket checkout line, and hope for the best.

“Remember when you couldn’t afford to see a doctor and so you just waited and waited and waited until you absolutely couldn’t wait any longer, and then you went to the emergency room, where they did too little too late and charged you tens of thousands of dollars for it?” Waukesha, WI resident Keith Donaldson said. “I guess those days are gone forever.”

“Except for the tens of millions of Americans who will remain uninsured even under ObamaCare, of course,” he continued. “They’re still fucked.”

_____________________________________________        
* The Onion – News.Issue 50-02 – Jan. 15, 2014