Entreaty

(D)ude: Man! Isn’t that a great picture frame? I got it at Lozenges Department Store!

(M)an: Dude! Perhaps. However, I believe the photograph framed within is the advertised image contained at the time of purchase. 

D: Man! Indeed, it certainly is! I never identified the frame as holding a photograph, did I? But, fortunately, Paulette and Larry, Darlene and Wade, and Francine and Kurt, have never really figured it out as you have. Actually, I use the image of the two women laughing and walking alongside the shoreline as a conversation starter and a way to scout for prejudices. 

M: Dude! You certainly have gone to great lengths to cut out the advertised words that most definitely accompany this picture. I too have frequented Lozenges Department Store and, curiously, this particular image is the pre-framed advertisement for many, many frames of various dimensions.  

D: Man! Yeah! I simply cut the dimensions and company motto and replaced the resulting gap with tomato red chevron washi tape and holiday musical note edgings. 

M: Dude! Why?

D: Man! Okay? Okay! I love the authenticity I see in the models pretending happiness and laughter. It is really fake but not completely dismissible. And it’s a great image, reminiscent of those commercials for European white chocolates with the hard liquor middle. Aren’t they?  

M: Dude! Have you had the wretched tenacity to name the two models and personally identify them as friends of friends? 

D: Man! I cannot remember. Quite honestly! I cannot! Oh, Almighty! Have I seriously become careless and neoconservative?

M: Dude! Just be careful to not plunge into the same waters as the TEA GOP and TEABAG Democrats.

D: Man! The Iran Nuclear Agreement, awaiting implementation by United States Congressional approval, is receiving criticism from New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer. But, fascinatingly, there is a bipartisan solution floating about as to how to address the rift between the State Department and Congress and that is the reinstatement of retired United States Army General Stanley Allen McChrystal for the sole intent and purpose of mainstreaming the objectives agreed upon in the nuclear agreement with Iran. Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia and Republican Senators Michael Crapo (of Idaho) and Ben Sasse (of Nebraska) have addressed Secretary John Kerry and Ambassador Wendy Sherman quite brilliantly and without the bloated superficial reproach that has defined the TEA GOP and TEABAG Democrats. 

M: Dude! Senator Tim Kaine’s exceptional back and forth discourse with Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew on July 23, 2015, was captured by C-SPAN as were Senators Crapo and Sasse’s exchanges with Ambassador Wendy Sherman and Acting Undersecretary Adam J. Szubin on August 5, 2015. I was impressed by Kaine’s grasp of the materials presented to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and then Crapo and Sasse’s dignified, respectful manner of addressing inquiries to Ambassador Sherman and Acting Undersecretary Szubin as they sat before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs. 

D: Man! There has never been precedence of such fluidity between all levels of the United States Government, not since President Eisenhower’s 1953 Atoms for Peace address to the United Nations General Assembly, the impetus for the formation of the IAEA, or International Atomic Energy Agreement, in 1957. It is interesting that a considerable number of members in the United States Congress are wanting access to the IAEA documents drafted with Iran. The IAEA has always followed the United States of America’s lead, the USA being the chief depositary government to give the final okay to proposals and recommendations made by the IAEA. In other words, the United States is entrusted with the final step in the decision-making cycle of the IAEA, as is the case right now. Hence, the United States of America does retain prestige and power, thanks in part to President Eisenhower being the mastermind of the endeavor itself.

M: Dude! Instead of the Keystone XL Pipeline installments—meant for making the land permanently uncultivable, hence uninhabitable—we must utilize this land for the welfare of our war veterans and their families. War veterans in the 21st century United States should be able to build homes and communities for themselves and civilians alike along the rich stretch of lands and aquifers, perhaps gathering data on the lives of those already settled and living with the changing climate. With heat indices reaching above 120 degrees in many Middle Eastern military posts where our sons and daughters have either served or continue their professional commitments, our soldiers are the most qualified to rebuild infrastructure with the atrociously varying weather conditions facing the world.    

D: Man! Military farming communities comprised of crop-growing war veterans who oversee organic farms, becoming local and national level suppliers of vegetation. This is crucial to homeland security, the environment addressed firsthand and the land saved and cultivated as a result. Veterans coming back from duty or recovering from injuries will have respectable jobs and active roles in government infrastructure contracts beginning at the municipal level, so that the United States in its entirety doesn’t fall into corruption as DFW and Texas have as a direct result of low voter turnout and general apathy.  

M: Dude! Our war veterans’ skills sets already involve community building in war-ravaged communities abroad. War veterans today are cream of the crop. 

D: Man! Brilliant, brave, and big-hearted! Our war veterans need to instill hope back into the fabric of our nation (and world) through such initiatives. They do not need parades, but solutions for long-term stability that will boost their self-esteem. It is never a charity to be given out or handed away. It is their right as service members to our nation. Volunteering military enrollees who soldier for our American values, the only way to show your gratitude is to help our sons and daughters in uniform build and give them what is rightfully theirs, and that is American integrity.