-West Side Story-

Once upon a time there was a dusty ol’ town people tended to refer to as The Wild West (some folk called it Crack Country, but that’s another story). One fine day this young punk rode into town on his father’s coattails, a trail of manually recounted votes in his wake, and proclaimed himself The New Sheriff.

The New Sheriff had fun and lovely ideas for his town. No one really knew what he was trying to say half the time, but everyone smiled and nodded politely. And then just as his father had done many many years back, he decided to go into Bad Injun Country (twice) to Get Some Oil, or rather Save Some People.

The difference was, this time, it was because sidekick Tonto wanted more sweets for his sweetshop (read: Halliburton), some big birds had crashed into the local tavern, and the economy was running as smoothly as Old Man Jeb’s rusty-wheeled horse carriage on gravel road.

So The New Sheriff, who by now wasn’t so new anymore, went to The Wise Ones to ask if he could venture into the unchartered waters of Bad Injun Country.
Ol’ Putin said no.
Ol’ Schroeder said no.
Ol’ Jacques said no.
Ol’ Annan said something no one understood. And then no.

But good ol’ Jugears said yes, and that was enough for The New Sheriff. So he kept sending his townfolk into Bad Injun Country, and finally he captured the Big Bad Injun, and everyone was happy. Oh, well, apart from the many people related to the hundreds of servicemen who lost their lives in the Iraq War, the people who’ve been beheaded, and of course the hapless Iraqis who watched on in horror as shot after shot rang out in the still Arab air.

After some time, some chap who had designs on the White County Jail strode into town with a wide grin on his face, but not before gunning down some of his own folk, and keeping one of them as his very own sidekick. So The New Kid challenged The Sheriff to a duel, and it was decided that they’d draw at dawn one day in November.

So it was that the two gunslingers (well, to be fair, only The Sheriff carried guns, and plenty of them. The New Kid, on the other hand, was trying to make up his mind on which gun to use, whether he should just use a lasso instead, abortion, and the Iraq War) met and it was one final bullet that had ‘Ohio’ and ‘farce’ written all over it that gunned down The New Kid.

And so everyone sang Oops, he did it again, while bracing themselves for 4 more years of semantic stumbles, wars and international alienation.