Obama declares National Pick Up Your Mat & Walk Day

Country can’t decide what to find most offensive

 

 

BY SERENA WELSH

FREELANCE WRITER

 

 

     A small number of people gathered in a cloud of breathy humidity inside the non-air conditioned sanctuary of Elm Street Chapel on Monday to discuss what some have described as the 44^th president’s most recent “blasphemous step in the direction of eternal damnation.”

      Rev. James Thompson, who heads the congregation of Elm Street Chapel every third Sunday, fears that by making miracles previously only dispensed by Jesus Christ, his Lord and Personal Savior, an “entitlement handed out all willy-nilly,” the President of The United States, and therefore the country as a whole, are committing the seventh Deadly Sin, which everyone knows is rarely ever forgiven.

     “We, as a society, begin to take for granted all the great works of [the] Messiah when big Government gets involved and starts deciding who is worthy of healing.”

     “What’s the incentive,” he asks as he wipes a bead of sweat from his upper lip with the back of his hand, “[for a person] to lead a pure and holy life if your reward matches that of the back-sliders, working poor, and other heathens?”

     But David Zimmick, co-founder of Liberty & Justice For All, a left-leaning lobbying group based in Lacy, Washington guffaws at Rev. Thompson’s worries, and accuses the administration’s actions of being too little, too late.

    “Listen,” he commands between each spoon load of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food he’s fervently shoveling into his mouth.  “Obama can heal people, for Christ sake.  He shouldn’t limit that to one day a year.  He’s caving to the right wing minority for no other reason than to promote bipartisanship.  Screw bipartisanship.  People didn’t vote for him so he could play nice with Republicans.

     “Not to mention, why is he only healing the lame?  He should be raising the dead.  But I guess that’s not a priority for him because they’ve had their voting rights suspended in every state except Louisiana.”

     “Well, I totally support Zimmick’s right to his opinion,” says Robert Plant (no, not that one), professor of Conservative Studies at Central Florida Community College.  “But you’ve got to understand the financial implications of resurrection.  Healing the sick, even if only for one day, takes a colossal burden off the backs of the American tax payers.  For each person the president heals, that’s years of Medicare payments put back into the national coffers.  And the money insurance companies don’t have to pay out will reduce health care costs for the rest of us as well.

     “Like I was explaining to my class last night, raising the dead opens up a whole new can of worms for all of us.  We all know that healthy people don’t die.  If you bring back the sick or the clumsy, you’re going to see all those Medicare savings we were expecting just vanish.  Not to mention the nightmare of red-tape for the Internal Revenue Service.  What are they supposed to do?  Reimburse the death tax?  We can’t even calculate all the ways in which this would affect the treasury.”

     Plant, however, may be one of very few people who support Barak Obama’s National Pick Up Your Mat & Walk Day.  Sharee Day, the Houston native and currently-between-jobs former Administrative Assistant for the shipping and receiving division of a major U.S. medical waste management company, and long time member of Texans Against Religious Deference is “just plain sickened by this.”

     “All the way from the founding of our country to abolishing prayer in schools, we’ve worked hard to build a nation that embodies the first amendment.  Come on, man.  It’s 2009.  Where’s our freedom from religion?  President Obama’s constant and relentless messianic words, actions, and symbolisms have just set our country back a good four months.  At least.”

     Still, the Obama administration maintains that a day of healing is “the right thing, at the right time.”

     When questioned Tuesday during his Town Hall meeting in Waxhaw, North Carolina about why so many are opposed to National Pick Up Your Mat & Walk Day, Obama said, “I don’t know why there’s opposition, to be honest with you.  There will always be those who disagree with me, and if they’d be willing to commit an act of terrorism against our land, our citizens, or our military in order to get their point across, I’d be glad to sit down and discuss it with them.”