Working Class Corner/April Fools Speech
March 30th Draft
Russell S. Day

When I first decided that April Fools would be the Transcendian Holiday, it was because I had suffered a broken heart on this day. It’s been 33 years now, and I’m over it.
Most of us at one time or another, have somehow made fools of ourselves, or been made fools of.
Typically it is not a fun feeling.
We may even cry about it.
Cast about, run away, get angry, and even make more fools of ourselves.
Sometimes we get counseling, or hire an attorney.
As for myself, I did say the Lords Prayer so much that it was a mantra running in the back of my mind all the time.
My poetry was changed and became more simple.
I worked on improving my humor by learning to make others laugh.
Over the past year, an awful lot of people have been made fools of.
I have to admit it is hard to find the humor in it.
A broken heart may make you feel foolish for investing hopes and love and all that into a relationship, but losing your job, and all your money puts things in perspective.
Our governments are not supposed to play practical jokes on us, make fools of us.
The corporations and companies that we work for are not supposed to trick us.
The people we invest our money with are not supposed to make fools of us.
Mr. Madoff, AGI, Bush and Wars, gas prices, Mortgage loans, Bankers, Car Companies, everyday headlines and reports on the radio and Tv tell of how somebody somewhere has either been foolish, or made fools of us.
It has gotten awfully extreme.
Even rich people who are only supposed to make fools of us, have been made fools of!
It has gotten out of hand.
We shall have to do more together than pray.
The first thing to do is look around you, and see strength, and wisdom, and beauty, and humor in your friends, and encourage that in them, and in yourself.
Don’t miss a chance to compliment, those next to you working to live well, with integrity for the little things that bring us delight.
Sometimes I simply wish all we needed was a common understanding and constant use of simple good manners. Apparently we need laws and my wishes don’t fully get it.
But truly it is the little things you do everyday, that matter more than the big things you do now and then, for otherwise you don’t have a foundation from which to do a good big thing now and then.
I myself want to do a Big Thing.
-A grandiose big thing. I want Transcendia to become a real country.
Who the hell am I to want to do such a thing, make a country of airports welcome in every country!
I’m a nobody. I’m just another fool.
I think Mickey Mouse is important, that Disneyland ought to have the same standing as the Vatican at the UN, for instance.
I think there ought to be an International Minimum Wage, and that every citizen ought to have Whole Life Insurance policies awarded at birth, so Capital and Labor achieve parity.
I think working to create a heaven on Earth, is a legitimate and worthy goal, even if I rise being called a fool for imagining how that might be done.
I think there is plenty of work for everybody just cleaning the place up, making it run cleaner, and that if we need to fight for something, it is clear we need to fight for our right to Big Time Species Status in a Universe that is pretty much not an easy place to live in.
Mostly we live in jeopardy of complete destruction.
It is nearly insured, though some physics may mean eventually we could make Warp Drive Spaceship that would get some of us into another universe, but this will take some work.
In the meantime, I’m going to declare war on asteroids.
You know to create a nation you actually do need to start a real war, and I’ve decided that Transcendia’s most legitimate war to start, is with Asteroids.
I’ll need some money to advance this war with Asteroids.
First I’ll be giving money from whatever Transcendian accounts are created by your donations, or purchases of Transcendian flags, tee shirts, or passports, to the organizations that have been successful in identifying and locating Asteroids that threaten us.
Next I will work with the scientists and engineers to come up with the most practical Planet Defense System.
I am told that 100 Billion is a pretty typical ballpark figure for a new space program, but good and impressive work has already been done on the locating and getting at Asteroids that we can build on.
So your purchases or donations from or too Transcendia will be done in order, and with accounting, on this particular war with the environment, is my promise, though since I got fired, and my unemployment will not last forever, I hope you don’t mind if I take a little to live on.
So in conclusion of this speech, let us see if we can get a rocket off the ground now.
Let us do a little foolish thing together and launch another little Transcendian Message Rocket for the fun of it.
You know from my perspective if you have to pick a war, pick a fun war, and shooting asteroids and space junk, and even threatening comets is about the most fun war I can come up with.