Planet Washington

ANY DRONE GOES  (Parody of  Cole Porter’s Anything Goes)

Times have changed, And we’ve often rewound the clock,
Since the Puritans got a shock, Allegedly landing on Plymouth Rock.

If today, Pilgrim immigrants came again,
‘Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock, a Drone / might land / on them.

In olden days a search / without warrant Was something we thought abhorrent, Now RAND PAUL knows, Any Drone Goes.

Good lawyers who the 4th Amendment knew was not some legal residue
Or quaint prose, Any Drone Goes.

The world has gone mad today And good’s bad today,
And black’s white today, And day’s night today,
When most guys today That women prize today
Marry other Men You Know!

And though I’m not a litigator I know that / soon-er or later
If POTUS propose /Any Drone Goes!

During 4½ years as secretary of Defense under presidents George W. Bush and Obama, Robert M. Gates was widely lauded as a shrewd national security mandarin who had seen it all, done it all and most important, could stay above it all in the partisan wars of Washington.
So the snarky put-downs and petulant asides in his impassioned, if somewhat contradictory, memoir, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” come as something of a surprise. Or delight.

Behind his mask of calm civility, Gates nursed grudges, tallied up slights and jotted down the caustic ripostes that he never delivered in public. The carping and zingers already have generated headlines.

Gates recounts his outrage at Obama closing an Oval Office meeting by warning “those of you writing your memoirs” that he had not made a decision. “I was offended by his suspicion that any of us would ever write about such sensitive matters,” Gates huffs in … his memoir. I LOVE THIS TOWN!

MEMOIRES  (Parody of “Mem’ries” from CATS)

Midnight, Not a sound from the white house
Has the press lost its memory?
 It is smiling alone
In the lamplight
 The book reviews collect at my feet
And Bob Woodward begins to moan

Memoirs All alone on the talk shows
I can smile at the old days
 I was beautiful then
I remember
 The time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again

Every press hit Seems to beat a fatalistic warning
Someone mutters and the white house sputters
Another news cycle dawning

Daylight
 I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I mustn’t give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin

Burnt out ends of smoky days
The stale cold smell of morning
A street lamp dies,
another night is over
Another day is dawning

Memoirs
 It’s so easy to read me
All alone with my memories
Of my days in the sun
If you buy my book
You’ll understand what happiness is
Quick – before a new memoir is begun!

West Virginia authorities are slowly lifting a five-day ban on tap water that has been in effect since a toxic chemical spill contaminated the state’s water supply last week. More than 300,000 people have not been able to drink, cook or even bathe with tap water.
The crisis began when 7,500 gallons of the chemical 4-methyl-cyclo-hexane methanol leaked from a storage tank at Freedom Industries, located on the Elk River just north of the capital Charleston and the region’s water supply treatment facility. Citizens first noticed something was wrong when the water started to smell like licorice.

Bottled Water
(Parody of Country Roads, by John Denver)

Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
JUST DON’T DRINK THE WATER OR YOU MIGHT GET SOME DISEASE

Chorus:
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, BOTTLED WATER
Take me home, country roads

All my memories, gathered ’round her
Miners’ Lady, stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty, painted on the sky
Misty taste of licorice, in Charleston’s water supply

Chorus

I hear her voice, in the morning hour she calls me
The radio reminds me to bring drinks from far away
And drivin’ down the road I get the feeling
That I should have not drunk water yesterday, yesterday