Limericks / Obama Limerick (July 24, 2009)

Thank you.

Thank you for reviewing it – and for visiting the site.

Thank you for reading it. The only reason I used the word “stupid” was that Mr. Obama used this word with respect to Cambridge police – I wouldn’t choose it either if it was not dictated by the incident.

Thank you for reviewing it.

The word “stupid” came as a direct reference to Mr. Obama comments on Cambridge police (that’s what he said, that police acted stupidly…).

Thank you for reading it. And I am happy to hear that it made you laugh.

Thank you. When I got my first formal personal evaluation, long ago, “perseverance” ranked #1… Remember Churchill? “Never, never, never, never, never give up!”

We gotta have coffee sometime.

Name the day/place. Coffee, beer, a real drink – I am game. My schedule is pretty much open day and night, except for a few special events.

You can send me an e-mail to obamafu@gmail.com

You just caught a hidden “something” everyone else overlooked – congratulations! You have a good ear. Of course, the “babble” can be replaced (rubbish, blabber, etc.) – but this was intended to echo.

This “reference” to Babylon seems to be timely, with all the turmoil coming from different “languages” people speak – even in this very incident.

It does make sense.

It is not “their” mama – it is clearly “Crowley’s” (“Gates” does not have a possessive apostrophe at the end).

In reacting to the incident, Mr. Obama focused on Mr. Gates’ grievance, while quickly replacing Mr Gates’ insult to Sgt. Crowley with Mr. Obama’s own babble on race.

Perhaps, you got confused by the parentheses. I may take them out.

It is also possible to reword the lines to read:
Mr. Gates and James Crowley’s mama
who were quickly replaced
by your babble on race…

because at some point, the babble was all that was left.

I will gladly take your advice to take lessons from Nash and Lear and other worthies, if you take my advice and read (or, perhaps, re-read) Miss Manners’ book…

And you perhaps might want to come to your senses and stop reading that idiot Ann Coulter

I knew it… Your review had nothing to do with the literature, right?

No.  but I hate Ann Coulter.  I just thought you could have done a better job writing it.  It could have been better with a little more work.  I may not agree with what you said, but since you put in the remark about “Ms. Manners” I thought I would include one regarding Ms. Coulter.  I didnn’t know your politics until after I reviewed you limerick.  I found out when I went to your site.  Literature is neutral as far as I am concerned.

Ok. Good. So now, as all good Americans should, we can make peace about something, and keep defending our opinions about something else, while being civil. This confirms my conviction that when people reason (instead of reacting emotionally), they end up speaking to each other in a civil way.

Now, after my explanations (and possible changes) shown above, and with all politics taken out of the discussion – where exactly do you still see flaws and where I could do a better job? I am truly interested in finding out, because everyone else’s response to this limerick was diferent from yours.

My position is where I stood before.  Line 1 is your introduction—you state your case, I feel the “mama” line should be deleted as it has nothing to do with the introduction of the limerick.  Write the limerick more to do with the incident.  Keep the last line, it works with your intro.  As it stands it sounds like you’re merely trying to be clever and it does not come off sounding all that clever, but what do I know, I’m an English  major.

You do not see what I see here, and I think we have a viewpoint difference that explains it, and it is not a language-related or a limerick-related one.

If you read carefully the police report about this incident (rather than news accounts), you will see that there was a conflict between two people, two males, which carried on for a while, and then ended up in the arrest of one of them, when he said something about another’s mama (because among males, these are “fighting words”). The fact that the second guy was a policeman, just made this arrest possible (instead of a probable fistfight), because “fighting words” directed at a policeman are, indeed, punishable by law.

Mr. Obama fully ignored this aspect, and instead rushed to re-interpret the entire conflict in terms of race – which was both erroneous and despeakable, from the standpoint of the majority of people in our country today (both Mr. Obama’s supporters and his adversaries).

From this point of view (which you may or may not share), “Drama” WAS consisting of Mr. Gates and his mention of another guy’s mama, and nothing else. Everything else was brought into it by Mr. Obama.

I know that this sounds simplistic – but all men I have spoken to (those who heard about this incident and took time to read the real report) saw it just like this.

Being an English major is not a severe handicap in this life, and with time (which methodically weeds out the unfit-for-posterity illiterates), it may even prove to be an advantage.

LOL!

I am glad you finally laughed.

Please refer to my comments to your review of another one of my limericks.