Just when we thought that things could not get any worse here in our fair State, they did. We’re talking about the three-ringed affair in the sacred halls of great deliberation, last week Thursday. It was shameful, and we were properly embarrassed.
The big tent opened with a dog on its unicycle, doing all sorts of cheap tricks – barking and snarling – articulating so much, and yet so little. It spat venom and bile, it seemed to be quite angry. In fact, not even the supposedly good news that the United States had given the green-light for the sale of a vessel that was being heralded as a “windfall,” seemed to temper its foul humour.
Of course, as is its wont, the rabid dog had to descend to the bottom of the barrel, and it quickly did, casting aspersion and other unkind and nasty barks at the dog-tamer. It was a highly offensive and disgusting display, so much so that the ringmaster, infamous for granting the canines and other animal performers, much latitude in the big tent, had to insist that the dog bark an apology. It did. Woof! Woof! But not before continuing its vile comments, besmirching the dog-tamer. The dog barked an insincere apology with a silly smirk on its mug, and never mind its disingenuousness, Antiguans and Barbudans hoped and prayed that comity and decorum would then prevail. After all, the circus is supposed to be family-friendly fare.
Alas! Sigh! It was not to be. When the dog-tamer (he’s been given that moniker because he returns anything that he gets from the dog, in aces and spades. He is not afraid of the dog, because he knows that the dog’s bark is much worse than its bite. After all, he once lay with this dog, he is familiar with its cowardly tendencies). So, notwithstanding all the woof-woofing, he knows that if he only barks-back, the dog will quickly run away with its tail tucked firmly between its legs, yelping like a scared puppy. Chihuahuas feel quite at home with this dog.
Anyway, when it was his turn to perform, the dog-tamer began dishing out some of the same de-wormer medicine that the dog had been spewing, and the ringmaster did not like it one bit. Apparently, when cross-talking and sputum, was being hurled across the aisle, he was quite sublime and tolerant, but when it was being returned to the incumbency, measure for measure, he became quite irate and was loathe to abide it. So he cautioned the dog-tamer, but the dog-tamer would not be cautioned. Au contraire, he upped the ante and turned his ire on the good ringmaster.
As you can imagine, the good ringmaster immediately ordered the keeper to remove the dog-tamer from the big tent. He further ordered the other performers – the clowns and the illusionists, to suspend the dog-tamer for the next three upcoming performances. They did. Of course, Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey shuddered at the poor treatment meted out to the dog-tamer. Not that the dog-tamer appeared to be too perturbed. He’d said what he wanted to say, he’d gotten a good deal off of his chest, and he’d held his head high. To hell with the circus! In any event, he instructed his attorneys to write a strong letter to the ringmaster.
Folks, our greatest deliberative body has become quite farcical, and many Antiguans and Barbudans only tune-in to gawk at the unseemly spectacle. Apparently, not much that is edifying can be expected when the circus comes to town. With so much vitriol and spite and ‘malice aforethought,’ is it any wonder that so many of our young people are harsh and belligerent with each other? They are learning this aggressive stuff at the circus. With vicious threats to inflict grievous bodily harm to others under the big tent, is it any wonder that many of our young people are doing just that?
Clearly, the circus has gone to the dogs, or rather, the dogs have gone with the circus. They are now baying at the moon, and chasing their tails around the ring.
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