Addressing America's Schoolchildren, A Primer

A is for atheist, leave room for doubt.

B is for baloney, leave one symbolic slice out.

C is for the clover in which we were born,

And D is for doom to failure and scorn.

E is for erudition, whatever that means,

And F is the letter that gets us to genes.

G is for genetics, where our future's endowed.

H is for the humility we're not allowed.

I is for importers, like gangsters but coarser

and J is for Judas, scripture's outsourcer.

K is for Kapital, suppressing the people

While L's for liquidity up to the steeple.

M is for mumbling when you say to work hard

N is for no as in no union card.

O is for Obama, daughter of Kenya

And P is for President, or sometimes pretender.

Q is for quicksand, composing our discourse

R is for what? Recession, of course!

S is for Socrates, who corrupted the youth

T is for television which restored them to couth

U is for unamerican, like socialism and tea

And V is for cross-cultural validity

W was the president for our golden age

X marked the spot where we all turned the page

Y is for Yokel, and Z is for snoring

The best you can do is to keep it all boring.

Schoolchild, n. The perpetual hostage. A Sabine-American, stolen in a blare of bugles and ransomed for a grunt.