Lyr Add: How the Grinch Stole America

Subject: How the Grinch Stole America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 10:53 AM

We've had an awful lot about the recent Residential Selection, but most of it's been in prose.

So here is Salman Rushdie's versification of it, lifted from today's Guardian (Thursday January 4, 2001)

So with the Ayatollah's fatwa still hovering over him, Salman has now invited similar retribution from the Ayatollah's equivalents in the USA, where he is currently in exile…

(I've posted it rather than just giving a link,. Because the online version in the Guardian has messed up the line breaks from the print version. We can do better than that.

How the Grinch stole America

Every Vote down in Voteville liked Voting a Lot,
But the GRINCH, who lived West of Voteville, did Not.

For Voting was Counting - not just Adding and such
But finding out if you Amounted to Much.
In this case, the question was, who, in a pinch,
Amounted to More? Did the Veep? Or the Grinch?

The Veep! What a creep!
What a CREEP! CREEP! CREEP! CREEP!
He simply could NOT be outdone by the Veep.

But the Veep was Experienced.
He'd done the big jobs,
He was smart. (He was smart-ass.)
He knew all the knobs
And the levers and buttons that worked the State's Ship
And the Grinch?
Well, re: knowledge he was not too hip.
The President of India? The economy? Pass.
He'd never been close to the head of the class.

So far the poor Grinch hadn't Amounted to zip,
He just hadn't Counted. It gave him the pip.
(His father! His eminent Dad! His own blood!
Compared to him, Grinchy had proved quite a dud.)

And now that he'd actually reached his Big Day
Argh! Counting the Ballots could steal it away!

And what was a Ballot? Was it silver or gold?
Were they counting up treasure? A fortune untold?
No! Just some dumb punch-card!
They were counting up holes!
Oh, the holes! Yes, the holes!
Oh, the HOLES! HOLES! HOLES! HOLES!
The whole thing depended on Circles of Air -
Not to mention the half-holes,
and holes that weren't there,
But that wanted to be there,
and thought that was fair.
All they would do was to add up! To Count!
And they'd count! And they'd count!
And they'd COUNT! COUNT! COUNT! COUNT!
And they'd probably end up with a
Quite Wrong Amount!
"If they go on counting," the Grinch shuddered, "Eep!"
"They may just wind up electing the Veep!"

"How to stop it?" the Grinch exclaimed with a moan
And then he remembered he wasn't alone.
There were Grinches all over, big Grinches and small,
There were Grinches in Voteville and in City Hall,
He knew some news-Grinches, and he could depend
On these inky fellows to shape and to bend
Their stories to help him win through in the end.

But the Grinches who'd give him the edge and the win
Were the great Legal Grinches,
and Grinches of Spin.

So he called on his cohorts.
"My friends, we must Grinch
This election! 'Nuff Counting!
Get to work! Do not flinch!
We must Grinch! We must Grinch!
We must GRINCH! GRINCH! GRINCH!
GRINCH!

We cannot be beaten by circles of air
Or circles that only imagine they're there.
Every day that they Count them, the total will creep
Up and up, until it elects that old Veep!"

So they Grinched the election.
They Grinched, day by day,
Until all the options were whittled away.
They Grinched it with lawyers,
they Grinched it with writs,
They split all the hairs and they picked all the nits,
And when it came up to the Ultimate Bench
They Grinched it away with one final Wrench.
They ordered all Voteville to give up its Count,
Before it came up with that Quite Wrong Amount.

And the Votes down in Voteville?
They've run out of steam.
'Tis the season to party, to heal and to dream.
Why worry? The Constitution is strong,
The judges who judge it can never be wrong,
The Veep may have won, but he's lost.
And that's that.
Voteville accepts the high judges' fiat.
There isn't a holler, there isn't a scream,
Think of the dollar! Let's play for the team!
So everyone okays the Grinch's régime,
And things are probably
probably
probably
probably
probably
Not as bad as they seem.

"Four whole years of Grinchdom!"
the Grinch cries with glee
"There's Only One Person who Counts now
. . . That's ME."

(Salman Rushdie writes monthly in the Guardian)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How the Grinch Stole America
From: mousethief
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 11:35 AM

Priceless. One may not agree with some of the sentiments, but the execution is near flawless.

Alex

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How the Grinch Stole America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 08:18 PM

Here's a links page about Salman Rushdie

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How the Grinch Stole America
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 08:22 PM

That's BRILLIANT, Mc Grath. Thanks for posting it.

Best, Greg

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How the Grinch Stole America
From: Tinker
Date: 05 Jan 01 - 12:56 PM

What fun, thanks !!!

Tinker

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How the Grinch Stole America
From: Owlkat
Date: 05 Jan 01 - 03:51 PM

Lovely. Owl.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How the Grinch Stole America
From: SINSULL
Date: 05 Jan 01 - 07:20 PM

Brought to mind:
"Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall..."
Thanks, MOH

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How the Grinch Stole America
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jan 01 - 11:18 PM

Get over it...for crying out loud

Take a long walk off a short pier

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How the Grinch Stole America
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 12:04 AM

Thanks, McGrath, just BRILL!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How the Grinch Stole America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 07:49 PM

Out of curiosity I put "Grinch who stole America" into my search engine - and what did it come up with among other stuff (none of which included the Salman Rushdie piece)?Nothing other than a report from the Gallup Poll people on how most Americans would like to get rid of the Electoral College system (as they have for many years apparently) - but not the Republicans apparently this time, surprise surprise:

"Support for changing the Constitution this year, although still clearly in the majority, may be down somewhat from previous decades, because of an apparent reluctance on the part of Republicans to support the change -- which would have given the presidency this year to Al Gore rather than to George W. Bush."

But what I found curious was how those words I typed in turned up that story. I suppose it was that word "stole" that did it.