A Brave New Plan for World Peace;

The Texan took the relevant exit, and they began heading south. He wondered if some cosmic irony might make the conversation do the same, but shook off the superstitious view that reality modifies abstract thought by physical operation. Humor is humor and reality is reality. This tautological paired syllogism took his fancy, and he repeated it to his friend. “Hey Aussie, did ya know that ‘Humor is humor, and reality is reality?’,” he laughed. For his own part the Aussie got the joke, and asked, “Does chewing gum impede your driving?” Still laughing at his own joke, the Texan responded, “No, why?” The man from down under valiantly took another shot; “Can you talk and drive at the same time?” “Sure can… what’s on your mind?” Aware that wasted humor is not a crime, the Aussie took the opportunity to ask another question. “Why does Texas fight with Oklahoma so much, seeing as they went and made your documentary for you?” “It’s aboriginal Texan territory, and we still want it back,” the Texan shared aloud. “Is that why there are no Texan Indian Nations?” the Aussie asked. The Texan could have used his ability to abbreviate in the form of a monosyllabic reply, but the Aussie had irritated him, and he didn’t want to leave this perplexing acquaintance to the privacy of his own thoughts. “First off, they’re not Foreign Nations, they’re Reservations. The Indians themselves have reservations about living there. Second off, the Sooners are cheats. It shows right there in the movie that they didn’t wait for a fair start, but lit out early to stake out the best Cattle Gate gullies and Stargazin’ clearings for themselves.” The Aussie saw an opening here, and ventured a contrasting viewpoint: “If you had been there, would you have left early too, just for sake of fairness?” Instead of laughing, the Texan growled “Two wrongs don’t make a right!” Sensing more approaching tautologies, the Aussie took another tack. “Isn’t it OK to be Oklahoman?” he asked, clearly pointing out that they might not all be “Sooners.” “OK’s just the name of the state, and it’s not ALL THAT OK… it’s mostly just mediocre,” he explained. Aware that he was at some pains to be polite, the Aussie didn’t ride the Cowboy too hard. “I heard that OK was actually the result of a legendary political campaign,” he elaborated. “Back in 1836, the Golden Anniversary of the Philadelphia Convention, Martin Van Buren ran for President as 'The Red Fox of Kinderhook.' " The Texan had little time for such nonsense. “I don’t care if he was a Fox or a Wild Goose, if he’d WON, THEN it would have been a ‘legendary campaign!’.” The outback camper took no offense, but decided to help himself to a little of the Texan’s legal tender. “Who’s the bank?” he asked. The Texan, having wagered many a time on the potential departure order of Crows, pointed to the ash tray. “Put ‘er there,” he intoned. They argued that two-cents was too symbolic, but a whole dollar was an invitation to fisticuffs, so they each pitched in two bits. They officially shook hands, and the Aussie took out an old NewYorker. There, on page 77 was a Campaign Ad, declaring in bold type “Vote for Old Kinderhook, it’ll be O. K.” The Texan was shocked. “You mean that’s what it means when we say ‘OK’?” he asked. “Not exactly, but close.” The Texan pulled into a rest area as the Australian pressed home his advantage. Peering at the magazine in the dome light of the pickup, they puzzled over very many ridiculous acronyms and abbreviations, “Oll Korrect,” among them. The Texan drank his fill at a water fountain, and took off for the restrooms. Upon his return, the Aussie changed waters in his turn. While he was gone, the dismayed Lone Star advocate reflected on the relative virtues of shooting Crows dead, so as to tamper with their ability to fly away. Just before departure, the Continental wanderer symbolically purchased a Coke, and they went on, the Texan wondering who the candidate was that Van Buren beat in 1836.

Having established that the Texan could both drive and talk at the same time, the enthusiast of Oz broached another topic. “This Ross Perot Diplomat of yours… you said he had success in the Middle East?” “Oh no,” the 5t was shocked at the misconception. “Not the Middle East, Arabia!” The Aussie neglected to be incredulous in return, but instead asked, “How does he compare with Canadians?” Well this topic called for special consideration on a whole new level. For one thing, the listener of the records wasn’t sure if Nacogdoches was the Middle East, or the Far East, but he was VERY sure it wasn’t Canada. His Texas Pride was on a mission too, absent from his brain. Canada was known to be a repeating candidate in the Interplanetary Diplomacy competitions, and while Texas had placed very favorably from Venus to Mars, they had not done so reliably. Perot was a new Diplomat, too, having only recently been promoted from Presidential Candidacy. Gone were the days when Texas Governor had done double duty as President, and now it was up to a foreigner to even take an interest. But this would have been IMPOSSIBLE to explain to his Aussie buddy, so other explications were in order. Without wrath to alloy it with, his Texas Pride went up in a puff of smoke, as he spoke with uncharacteristic humility. “He’s pretty good, but he’s just ONE Texan,” he admitted. Diplomacy Teams were a new invention, patterned after the more widely accepted group, the Debate Team. He gamely attempted to be objective by adding “Reuters has news articles on Canada.” The testable aspect of this suggestion warmed the heart of the generous Aussie, and he asked “Well, what do you hear?” “I don’t think Texas and Canada have much of a history,” he said contritely. “Do you mean that you haven’t heard about the Canadian Incentive Rider on the Marshall Plan?” the Aussie supplied, attempting to be informative and educational at once. “You mean back when France was still war-like and hadn’t all become lovers and not fighters during the Second World War? No, what was it all about?” The Texan was still listening to what the Australian was saying, but he was using learned and practiced coping skills, purchased with intellectual elbow grease in his capacity with the 5ts. Other than that, he was falling to the Un-Texan human habit of thinking about his next sentence and rejoinder, rather than the content of the conversation. He came to the conclusion that it was best to deny all involvement with Canadian Incentive just as the Aussie finished telling him “… so if Canada fails in two out of three diplomatic missions, Quebec would have to explain to all of France about the reason America as a whole treats them like muscular simpletons in all considerations of war, and never lets them forget the French Partisan occupation of the Pyrenees.” The Texan noted that his friend had dutifully avoided the offensive “the Americas,” and responded in a typically unbiased way, “The occupation of the Pyrenees was Naked aggression,” he agreed, “but that doesn’t really justify ridin’ the French – why I’m pretty sure they’re just as tired of it as I am!” The Aussie made a mental note to clarify what (if anything,) horses are for, and began to reconcile the differences. “The French just talk about sex a lot because they avoid the topic of money; you’re just the same, but you have more not to talk about,” he began. “Despite this, I can’t see ANY reason for Texas to bomb Canada!” The Texan knew he’d missed a trick, and decided to document the humility of a student, and make a real meal of Crow. “OK, so what if we DID. The papers would be forced to report everything FAIRLY, including the Republicans AND the Democrats. By the time the media get done covering the Military’s point of view, there’ll hardly be any newsprint inches LEFT for the Texan agenda! Why, I really think that’s the whole reason Texas politics is so hard to follow.” The longtime educational researcher regarded the Texan for a long moment pensively. Then he rolled down the window and let the cool evening breeze circulate within the cab until the temperature fell and the air cleared. Upon re-closing the window, he ventured a truly foreign point of view. “I speculate Reuters might actually have a different take on the whole affair,” he postulated. “In all the world I’ll agree, there isn’t a single unbiased news source. Nevertheless, I reckon their bias will show your bias a different point of view. Instead of trying to poll the entire UN council, they’d just go and get TWO opinions and publish THEM outright: The US point of view and the Canadian point of view.” “Well if that’s the case, it’s a marvel that Texas and Canada don’t just have World War III,” the 5t concluded with sincerity. These Canadians were potentially using Reuters as a license to ignore not just the Republicans, and the Democrats, with their various military cadres; they were going to ignore the TEXAN POINT of VIEW – I mean these were the people who just BOMBED them. Thankfully this was an area that the Aussie had encountered before. Outside the US, it was actually quite commonplace to ignore the Texan point of view. It was simply his charitable opinion that this was the World’s loss, and not that of Texas. “My friend, you have less faith than I do in the world’s two premier sources of diplomacy,” he elaborated. “Texas and Canada both agreed long ago to have a Peace Hostage System. Canadians come down from Canada every year, and dutifully pretend not to know about tourist traps, and attend conferences and ride public transport (most Texans don’t, and public transport has to stay in business somehow,) and Texans do the same in return, taking pictures, and visiting all the Canadian hot spots, treating English and French speakers alike without prejudice. Why, I myself learned about the Parthenon from a Canadian who had been there telling me about it in San Angelo.” “What’s so special about it?” asked his conversational counterpart. “Well, you know how all the sky-scrapers point straight up in the sky and go on and on for ever? The Greeks apparently had a thing about buildings falling on them, and used a 12 and a half degree slope to make their Parthenon LOOK straight up, and not lean over on them like a stile in the concrete jungle.” “The Greeks built it, huh?’ The Texan replied thoughtfully. “I’ve known about them a long time... practically taking OVER the educational system!” Acknowledging a mutual love of education, they rode on in companionable silence.