I made a point of calling several people yesterday, perchance to discover whether they had attended Thursday’s sitting of the Senate, watched it live on TV or caught a recording by NTN. The majority, including news reporters and the leader of the opposition party, had no idea there had been a meeting—let alone its agenda.
Then there was this from a clearly disgruntled young student: “Why would I waste my time watching another lousy performance by talentless actors who should be out there, like the rest of us, toiling in the sun with no returns? Everybody knows how their movies begin and end!”
She was on point, but only just. What she had referred to as “their movies” was really one seemingly endless comedy of errors with badly written lines badly delivered. That was the norm. But Thursday’s episode was somewhat different, despite the same familiar faces in their familiar roles and in their familiar places.
There was the usual Planet of the Apes pounding of fists that passed for team applause; not to mention the director’s largely misunderstood instructions.
The day’s episode centered on whether a declared illegality could legally be rendered legal. In an earlier take, the majority had voted aye, never mind that the law as contained in Section 41 of the Finance Act loudly proclaimed no!
The first to address the matter is a part-time lawyer masquerading as the Planet of the Apes’ Caesar. Much of what he said echoed what had already been said at last Tuesday’s House debacle, without the several allegations of impropriety.
All Caesar seemed interested in was the belated guaranteeing of millions of dollars borrowed by the Stephenson King Administration without House authority (See Vice Preaching to Virtue in this issue). Oh, but the senator Dr. Steven King, in his own role as the 1968 Planet of the Apes’ Charlton Heston, was having none of that.
Barely had he jumped from his chair than he let the Senate of the Apes know he would vote against any attempt at making a mockery of Section 41 of the Finance Act. But having said that, the doctor reached into his pocket for his anesthetizing needle.
He cited the governor general, who of course is well known for her role as the prime minister’s tool on the hill. Evidently she had talked somewhere about citizens taking responsibility for their actions. Dr. King also cited the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
If only the good doctor had chosen instead to stick to the point, to the fact that Section 41 makes no allowances for “belated guarantees,” and indeed demands prior House approval of loans. If only he had demanded of Caesar the authority for what he had proposed.
Instead, Dr. King—a member of the still-born Vision Commission—prescribed as the remedy for the day’s malady investigations by dead bodies, among them the House finance committee. It seemed not to have occurred to the senator-doctor-vision commissioner that we already have the appropriate remedies for all lawbreakers; that what is needed is respect for our laws.
Pointless going into the other contributions by Caesar’s echoes. Over and over the movie director tried to steer his STEP thespians in the right direction, to no avail.
Shortly before it came time to vote on whether parliament was authorized to belatedly approve loans (especially after-the-fact loans that smelled to high heaven!) the director said he had asked particular questions with a particular motive: he suspected he might be required to deliver a casting vote. Yes, an announcement obviously not scripted—in effect a senate version of Haley’s Comet.
No surprise that all five senators on the government’s side voted to make legal what the government had earlier declared illegal. It was something of a surprise when the other side inclusive of independents voted no, if for different reasons. It was at this point that Senator King called for a head count and infuriated the hell out of Senator James Fletcher.
He needn’t have worried. After all, the vote count was five-four. The fifth senator, who, had he voted against the resolution, would have forced a casting vote by President Claudius Francis, was nowhere to be seen. With hardly anyone noticing, he had quietly removed himself far away from the voting place.
And so, yet another shaft was shoved up the rectum of a people by now impervious to pain!
Who was the senator who leaked out of the voting place?