Ike For President, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #194 | @MDWorld

August 28, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 1 Comment

Dear Art,
I bet most people don’t appreciate how hard it is to be a tropical storm.  I have to blow 70 mph winds 24 hours a day and do you have any idea how hard it is to keep the atmospheric pressure so low?  After all that shit I have to put up with now I’m getting blamed for disrupting the Republican National Convention.  They’ve already postponed much of the first day’s program and I have the potential to distract further if I hit New Orleans as a category two or higher hurricane as has been forecasted.  How is this my fault?  Someone in charge of this event must have looked at a calendar or seen a weather report before.  How am I taking so much flack for this?
Hurricane Isaac

Ike,
I feel your pain brother; it’s hard to be hated just for doing what’s in your nature.  I originally planned on a cheap shot here on Republicans hating on gays but I decided against it.  I will not use a storm for scoring political points.  That would be a truly disgusting thing to do and I will not engage in it.  Instead I will spend the rest of this column taking quotes from times other people did that and applying it to this situation.  I’m not going to add more toxic rhetoric into the American political discourse but I’m certainly willing to recycle it.  I’m all about saving toxic discourse landfill space.

Last year after Hurricane Irene hit Michele Bachmann said, “I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians.  We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane.  He said ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’” and I feel like that’s an excellent point.  Bachmann went on to say that she thought God’s message was on the subject of government deficit spending a topic I’m not sure the almighty cares much about.  However, if God were going to use natural disasters to get the attention of politicians then I think hitting a political convention would be fine targeting.  Also, shouldn’t God go back to talking to people directly through burning bushes or something?  This using hurricanes for vague messages seems really inefficient.

In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina Pat Robertson, famous for being a total asshole said, “But we have found we are unable somehow to defend ourselves against some of the attacks that are coming against us, either by terrorists or now by natural disaster?  Could they be connected in some way?” He’s referring to America’s policies on legalized abortion as the cause in that passage and his reference to terrorist attacks recalls his earlier cockbag approach of blaming the 9/11 attacks on the same thing.  If God’s way of dealing with abortion policy is to send big honking storms at people then I see no way that it’s a coincidence that a hurricane is bearing down on the RNC convention just after they adopted the most alarmingly anti-abortion platform in memory.  I don’t make the rules here guys I just enforce them.

Of course, Ike, I don’t actually believe any of these things.  The people I quoted in this article are crazy people and I try really hard not to be crazy and not to stoop to their level.  You’re going to graze Tampa because of the movement of different bands of pressure and your strength is governed by water temperature and wind shear.  I sincerely hope you don’t cause any serious property damage or any loss of life and that this just goes down as one of the wettest political conventions in memory.  Knowing the Tampa Bay obsession with strip clubs that might have been a foregone conclusion storm or no storm but you should be entitled to credit.  Try to stay warm up there.