“Pull up the drawbridge! Flood the moat! The barbarians are coming!” ranted Luke the Dude, before even tasting his draught.
“Which barbarians, old son,” queried The Prof politely. “And why would they select our little town to overrun?”
“Useless!” opined Jon the Joker objectively.
“American barbarians of course!” Luke charged forth. “Forget about our arty little town, Prof, over there in artless America they’re pulling books out of library shelves and banning pictures of Michelangelo’s David! Filthy porn! Florida has already surrendered under the uncultured leadership of their Trump-cloned Governor.”
“That one,” snorted Jean-Jay, “he will outbare the barbarians at any book burning!”
“Speaking of which,” conspired Bill the Beard, “Even the Bible is in the sights of those who wish to sanitize it – all that sex! It’s that lusty King David again, caught without his knickers – which, of course, nobody wore in his time.”
“Useless!” sniggered Jon the Joker, “imagine, Goliath would have laughed him all the way out of the uncivilized world!”
“Hold it right there,” worried Miss Lily, careful of how fast humour can go south in the local Pub & Grill. “Are you sure, Luke, that this is not more Trumpish fake news? That man has been a very bad influence on some of his countrymen.”
“Only his country-men?” Jon the Joker confirmed Miss Lily’s fears.
“No,” warned she, “we’re not going there!”
“Where?” enquired Jon innocently, “Trump grabbing the attention of his country-women?”
Here The Prof thought it prudent to change the subject: “Pray tell us, young Lucas, why you believe the outrages of those uncultured barbarians are grounded in fact?”
“The Telegraph reports that a Florida school principal had to resign,” elucidated Luke, “after the art teacher introduced a class to Michelangelo’s work – and the statue of David upset at least one parent (yes, in DeSantis Land one is a majority). Parents had not been warned in advance, apologised the school.
“This kind of madness is being enforced all over Florida by semi-fascist changes to the rules. See what I mean by barbarism?”
“Thanks Luke,” said Irene the Queen, “and what did you mean, Bill, about The Bible also being targeted? Was that a joke?”
“Don’t know, maybe,” pondered Bill the Beard, “the complainant’s intention could be to demonstrate how witch-burningly mindless these rules are. Fact is, The Bible, Anne Frank’s Diary and some 40 other book titles were pulled from libraries in a Texas school district. This happened in August and is still smouldering:
“After the targeted books were reviewed for filthy contents, the gauleiters that be did not like the outcome of the reviews and kept the books banned for re-reviewing. To my mind, this is the kind of thing last seen in Nazi Germany and still seen in Middle Eastern tyrannies.
“Looking at what’s happening with the arraigned, Waco-hinting Trump, threatening ‘death and destruction’ and his followers capable of that – as demonstrated in their attack on the Capitol to overthrow the democratically elected government – I agree with Luke. These are barbaric, perilous times.”
E mail – noag@hermanus.co.za
