The Only Real Democracy in the World

You may not know this, but there is only one real democracy in the world, only one country where true democratic ideals are flourishing: Libya. If you don’t believe me, just ask the world’s most respected authority on democracy: Muammar Gaddafi.

Addressing a conference of U.S. and Libyan scholars at Columbia University in New York, the Libyan leader gave them information that only the most well-educated among them already knew: “There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet.”

Gaddafi did not attend the conference, but spoke through a video link, demonstrating the immense value of teleconferencing, without which so many people would have been deprived of such wisdom.

As reported by Reuters, Gaddafi described the representative democracies in the West as “farcical” and “fake,” inferior to Libya’s Jamahiriyah system, which allows people to express their views through a hierarchy of people’s congresses. Unlike democracy in countries like Uganda and Zimbabwe, where a single leader has ruled for more than 20 years, Libya’s democracy has allowed its citizens to elect three leaders in the past 37 years: Khadhafi, Qadhafi and Gaddafi. (If you think they are one and the same, you are probably one of those misguided foreigners who also think that all Libyans look alike.)

Just consult the Official Libyan Book of Facts and you will learn that Khadafi ruled from 1969 to 1984, then lost an election to Qadhafi, who ruled until 2000, when he was defeated by Gaddafi. None of the elections was disputed; none was decided by the Libyan Supreme Court. However, the campaigns were always contentious, creating such bad blood among the three rivals that they vowed never to appear in public together. To this day, Gaddafi does not talk to Qadhafi, though their wives do maintain occasional contact, several of them at least.

Qadhafi, in case you are wondering, was responsible for much of the state-sponsored terrorism that tarnished Libya’s reputation in the 1980s and ’90s, a condition that Gaddafi has worked hard to rectify. By participating in conferences like the one in New York, he hopes to show the world that his country has not only cleaned up its act, but wants to foster global progress and international cooperation, even if it means letting other countries in on the secret of democracy.

“Countries like the United States, India, China, the Russian Federation, are in bad need of this Jamahiriyah system,” Gaddafi told the conference. “This is a savior to them.” But his words have so far failed to excite leaders of those countries, particularly President Bush. “I know who my savior is,” Bush said. “And it isn’t Jeremiah.”

Outsiders may be skeptical, but there are millions in Libya who know the truth, having studied the Official Libyan Book of Facts. It includes indisputable facts like these:

---George Bush has ruled America with an iron fist since 1988. He came to power after ousting Ronald Reagan in a bloody military coup. Bush looks much younger today than he did back then, due to a strenuous program of running, weightlifting and facelifting. Bush has two wives: Laura and Condoleezza.

---Al Gore tried to overthrow Bush in 2000, but failed in his attempt and has since mysteriously disappeared. Though no one is certain what happened to him, Bush’s deputy, Dick Cheney, has been known to shoot people. He is the chief reason that Bill Clinton, a previous opponent who briefly held power, now lives in exile in India.

---Libya is the only real democracy on the planet, though Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Cuba are fairly close. It is because of Libya’s freedom and democracy that many Americans, including Elvis Presley, continue to live in this great country.

The Nice Old Woman in the Shoe

Whenever my daughters enjoy a story or nursery rhyme that I enjoyed as a child, it gives me a certain thrill, makes me feel that their childhood isn’t too different from mine, despite the fact that mine occurred in the dark ages, when books were etched on stone.

Those were indeed primitive times. Stories and rhymes didn’t protect us from the evils of the world. We had to read, for example, about the old woman who lived in a shoe and her terrible mistreatment of her children: “She whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.” I know what you’re thinking: How could anyone be so cruel? Wasn’t it bad enough that the children had to deal with the social stigma of living in a shoe?

Thankfully, the old woman who appears in my daughters’ books has been rehabilitated, perhaps through many hours of therapy. Nowadays, she treats her children rather well: “She kissed them all sweetly and sent them to bed.”

But she still lives in a shoe and feeds her children broth without bread, whereas, a few pages later, Little Miss Muffet is eating curds and whey. Hopefully, by the time my grandchildren read these rhymes, the gap between the rich and poor won’t be so wide.

Miss Muffet may have been rich, but she still had to deal with the big spider who “sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away.” I know what you’re thinking: That’s horrible! How could this happen? Miss Muffet needs to get on the phone and fire her pest control guy.

Thankfully, children today can read the book “Positively Mother Goose” and meet a kinder, gentler spider. This spider “sat down beside her and brightened Miss Muffet’s whole day.” The rhyme ends on that happy note, but hopefully, by the time my grandchildren read it, Miss Muffet will invite the spider to share her curds and whey. And maybe the spider will teach Miss Muffet how to build a good web site.

Then there’s the tale of the three little pigs. In my day, the first two pigs met a tragic fate at the hands of the big bad wolf. He didn’t just blow their houses down, he even – don’t read any further if you’re squeamish – ate them for dinner. I know what you’re thinking: How shocking! Children’s books should not be promoting the consumption of pork. Especially when a large segment of the population considers it offensive.

Thankfully, my children read about a wolf who isn’t quite so hungry. He merely blows the pigs away. But he’s still not the model citizen we expect children to read about. Hopefully, by the time my grandchildren read this story, the wolf will call a press conference to apologize to the pigs and promise to enroll in anger management classes.

As we strive to improve children’s literature, let us give credit to the teachers at a nursery school near Oxfordshire, England, who are getting the children to sing not just “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” but also “Baa Baa White Sheep.” And just in case that isn’t inclusive enough, teachers at two other nurseries are getting children to sing “Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep.”

We should also give thanks to Sarah M. Giles and Sarah Shea, whose December 2003 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal shed light on some important medical and safety issues in nursery rhymes. “In the case of Humpty Dumpty,” they wrote, “we question whether ‘all the king's horses and all the king's men’ were capable of launching an appropriate medical intervention after Mr. Dumpty's unfortunate accident. What sort of EMS training and equipment did these first responders have? … The presence of ‘all the king's men’ also suggests a shocking lack of crowd control. Could the crowded scene explain the inability of the responders to ‘put Humpty together again’?”

Their article was, of course, tongue-in-cheek. But hopefully, by the time my grandchildren read this rhyme, the emergency response will be better: “All the king’s doctors and all the king’s nurses managed to put Mr. Dumpty together again. And he married the old woman in the shoe and they lived happily ever after.”

Bush Rides Wave of Popularity in India

President Bush recently spent two days in India, prompting an estimated 100 million people to take to the streets to protest his policies. Many carried banners calling him the world’s biggest terrorist and some really bad names in Hindi.

“Welcome to India, Mr. President,” U.S. ambassador David Mulford said, shaking Bush’s hand in New Delhi. “You’re going to like it here. Your approval rating is higher here than in America. Indians absolutely love you.”

“They love me?” Bush asked. “But 100 million of them are rioting and calling me bad names. I’m afraid to see what they’d do if they hated me.”

“Don’t take it the wrong way,” the ambassador said. “It’s only 100 million Indians. The other 90 percent absolutely love you. They adore you. ”

“So you think I’m safe here?” Bush asked, visibly relieved. “No one will shoot me?”

“Very safe here,” the ambassador said. “As long as you didn’t bring Mr. Cheney with you.”

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the reports of 100 million protestors were greatly exaggerated. “I’m not disagreeing that 100 million people were on the streets,” he said, “but most of them were simply waiting for the bus. And what looked like a riot to foreign journalists was just our usual traffic.”

Upendra Kumar, a Bangalore man who helped organize the protests, agreed with Singh’s assessment, adding that the protests would have been more effective if all banners and signs had been spellchecked. Indeed, one protestor, shown on TV networks worldwide, carried a sign that said, “Go home, American terrierist.” Another displayed a banner that said, “George W. Bush: world’s biggest tourist.”

Despite the protests, Bush’s visit was a resounding success. He and Singh reached an agreement to share nuclear technology and expertise. “I feel very confident about India having weapons of mass destruction,” Bush said. “This is a peaceful country that loves all its neighbors.”

To underscore the point, Bush visited a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi and praised the leader’s philosophy of nonviolence. “He has had a great influence on me and the rest of America,” Bush said. “It is because of him and his principles that we have chosen not to invade more countries. We are keeping our nonviolence to a minimum. I mean, our violence. You know what I mean.”

Singh took Bush on a four-hour trip to the southern city of Hyderabad. They stopped at a high-tech center after Bush expressed a strong desire to “visit all the American jobs.”

Singh told Bush that most of the jobs at the center had been outsourced from America in the last five years. “You mean I created all these jobs,” Bush said, beaming from ear to ear. “And to think the Democrats say I haven’t done anything for the economy.”

As he left India for Pakistan, Bush said he hoped to foster economic and political development that would make India’s neighbor “a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world." Bush later corrected himself, telling reporters that he meant to say “the Muslim world.”

“I know that all Muslim countries are not Arabic,” he said. “And I also know that all Arab countries are not Muslimic.”

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Scott McClellan, hoping to prevent another round of protests in the Muslim world, refuted reports in various Arabic newspapers and TV networks that Bush had said, “I know many people who are putting their faith in Islam are bad.”

“The president was misquoted,” McClellan said. “What he said was, ‘My delegation is excited about President Musharraf’s desire to bring about positive change. I know many people who are putting their faith in Islamabad.’”

He added that the president had held important discussions with Pakistani officials and had left the country with a much better understanding of how to pronounce ‘Islamabad.’