Stateside With Rosalea: Secession Day, July 4 '09

Stateside With Rosalea: Secession Day, July 4, 2009

Declaration the First:

By the powers vested in me (by me) as Dictator of New California, I hereby declare July 4 to be Secession Day. As a gesture of my great love for My People, all CA Members of Congress and of the now-defunct state legislature and local authorities (why stop at DC?) will be slow-roasted on a spit in their respective districts and made available for consumption by their former long-suffering constituents while bands play and fireworks light the sky.

Matters Arising:

Victims of the K1P1 virus are encouraged to knit as they watch the heads turn. After all, there can never be too many spare ribs at a July 4 BBQ!

The former Governor and the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives are exempt from this fate not just because I couldn’t find a crock pot big enough to stew them in—spit-roasting not being deemed effectual in softening their stringy hides—but also because their incarceration on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay has proven such a financial boon that I would be an idiot not to keep them there.

Just for today, however, public viewing of Inmates #1 and #2 will be free, as will the rotten tomatoes and other distasteful matter that New California Tourism Inc usually sells for throwing at them. You may also BYO, and since there are no longer any departments of public health to infringe on your inalienable right to carry your own personal health hazards about with you…have at it!

Declaration the Second:

Furthermore, I hereby declare the airspace above and near the Staples Center in Los Angeles to be the sole property of New California, and will charge a toll on any broadcast waves passing through it. All final broadcasters of such airwaves will pay $1 per viewer/listener. Just for one day, mind you, because I’m not greedy. The dart I threw at the calendar fortuitously landed on July 7 (possibly because of the magnet a mysterious “someone” had placed there).

Matters Arising:

I know, I know, the whole purpose of seceding was so you, My Beloved Corporate Entities, would not need to pay taxes, but this toll is no different than the toll that some of you now charge to drive on New California’s roads in exchange for my removing the tax burden on My Beloved People by selling the roads to you in the first place. (Tough titty for those MBPs who live in sparsely populated rural areas, who now find that a horse and buggy are the only way of negotiating roads the MBCEs don’t maintain because it would be unprofitable to do so.)

Since the larger part of the 7/7 money will be in weird currencies like the rupee and the NZ Dollar, which have no great value in New California, and since I don’t have any accounting staff to manage the transactions—having abolished all government departments and agencies because a) they were a waste of taxpayers’ money, and b) because there are no taxes—I will make the Ultimate Sacrifice and simply use the money in the country it originated from to construct summer, winter, spring, and autumn palaces for myself around the world.

(Inspired by my VAIO Music Box playlist categories, I might also throw in a few Rainy Day, Fine Day, Retro, Party Time, and Meditation palaces for good measure.)

MBCEs who want to bid for these overseas construction jobs are invited to ply me with liquor, fine cigars, studly companions, and gifts of great value as soon as possible. Hint: I am partial to holy relics, and if the urn could play “Billie Jean” when I tap it, We would be most pleased.

Signed, with seal affixed, by:

Rosalea Barker, Dictator of New California, this fourth day of July, MMIX

(This column inspired for you by the Secession Week coverage at Let a Thousand Nations Bloom, and the hilarious and thought-provoking—though perhaps written under the influence of H1N1—blog post at Unqualified Reservations, whose author seems to have Queen Elizabeth the First in mind as the model for a constitutional dictator to cure California’s ills.)

Happy Secession Day!

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