Malibu Makes The Pie Higher

My good friend and fellow writer Veronique de Turenne points out on her LA Observed blog Here in Malibu that this Saturday is the annual Malibu Pie Festival, from 11-3 at the Malibu Country Mart. (Veronique baked a blue ribbon pie her first time out of the oven last year, but her delightful dog Maisie ate it ... the ribbon, I mean.)

Anyone who knows me knows I like pie, which is reason enough to note Saturday's festival here. It's also as good a reason as any to run a poem titled for a George W. Bush quote, 'Make The Pie Higher.' The entire piece is composed of quotes uttered by Pres. George W. Bush.

Snopes.com says the arrangement is "generally credited to Washington Post writer Richard Thompson, a satirist and illustrator who produces the 'Richard's Poor Almanac' feature appearing in the Post's Sunday edition:"

Make the Pie Higher
I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!

— TJ Sullivan in LA