World Leaders Speak Out
(also some Canadians)
by Fergus McAngus, International Centre for the Study of the Zeitgeist, Greater Freelton Area College of Applied Arts and Technology,
and distinguished journalists E. N. Beej and Strafe Rafferty.
Like many of you, we here at the International Centre for the Study of the Zeitgeist (ICSZ) recently received by e-mail what purported to be the results of a survey of prominent figures, mostly American, about their opinions of an age-old philosophical question. We have now been able to ascertain that this survey was entirely fabricated. Attempts by our vast team of fact checkers to find independent confirmation of the quotations provided in the report have been uniformly fruitless. While many of the answers are plausible, they simply were never given.
Therefore, we at the ICSZ undertook to restore confidence in the polling industry by conducting our own survey of the opinions of the influential and of prominent Canadians (grant conditions, eh?) about the age-old philosophical question "Why did the chicken cross the road?". Here are the results:
Replies to the question:
Why did the chicken cross the road?George W. Bush: To keep its pants up.
Tony Blair: What he said.
Jacques Parizeau: Money and the ethnic vote.
Jean Chrétien: How do you know it crossed the road? You need proof. It is not a proof until it is proved and then it is a proof. A proof is a proof of the proof.
Jack Layton: Canadians are demanding that the government affirm the nation's commitment to the provision of adequate day care facilities to working chickens.
Joe Clark: Thank you for calling Progressive Conservative party headquarters. No one is available to take your call at this time. If you would like to leave a message for one of our members of parliament, please call back later when they have figured out how to retrieve their voice mail.
Stephen Harper: Because she was ashamed that the Canadian government won't fulfil its duty to do whatever the United States wants it to do.
Donald Rumsfeld: It was one chicken! One solitary chicken! The way the press covers it you'd think chickens were crossing roads everywhere!
Ernie Eves: There is no need to panic. The chicken has been quarantined. If you have been in contact with a chicken, stay indoors without contact with anyone till further notice.
Faculty Association of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education: The hermeneutic implications of chicken-road symbolism may not be understood by conventional reductive dissociative processes, but only through semiological disconfiguration of its underlying metadialectical syzygies.
Buzz Hargrove: The bosses told it not to cross the road.
Roy Romanow: This shows how imperative it is that we establish a covenant between the Canadian chicken community and its elected representatives about the road safety responsibilities of all Canadian chickens.
Carpenter Hazlehurst, superintendent of education, Greater Don Mills (Ont.) District School Board: Our focus groups indicated quite clearly that this was where the chicken should be headed.
Barbara Hall, candidate for mayor of Toronto: Improved road safety for all the diverse avian communities in Toronto is an essential part of my vision for the city.
John Tory, candidate for mayor of Toronto: I will end the futile name-calling and double-dealing between the chicken community and the provincial government. Trust me on this.
Mel Lastman, current mayor of Toronto: People. People. I have always loved chickens. I love roast chickens, barbecue chickens, chicken wings, chicken breasts, chicken legs, chicken croquettes. The accusations that I am opposed to chickens are lies and untruths, and they are false.
CNN: Our reporters only failed to prevent chickens from crossing roads in dangerous traffic because they had to protect informants who would have been compromised if the chicken's lives had been saved. No network has done tougher reporting about chickens than we have.
Fox News: Once again critics of the American administration have been proven wrong! Chickens are crossing roads, despite the fears and unsubstantiated claims of America's critics. The Bush administration has promised to establish interim chicken crossings as soon as possible.
CBC Newsworld: Coming up, Peter Mansbridge's in-depth interview with a chicken.
Live Eye at 6: Our roving reporter will have live-eye coverage of the chicken crossing the road at 6. Plus interviews with key witnesses purported to have seen the chickens crossing the road. And now the Sports Report.
City Pulse News (Toronto): Here's our poultry traffic specialist, Laura DiBattista.
Stan Koebel: I tested to see if the chickens crossed the road. The results came back indicating positive for road crossing but I didn't tell anyone. The chickens continued to cross the road but I didn't tell anyone. I'm sorry for any pain that I have caused.
Dr. Phil: You don't have to be an ornithologist to tell a chicken from an armadillo.
David Frum The right to cross roads is one of the foundations of democracy, and "conservative" commentators who support the anti-chicken forces are traitors to our Lord and Saviour George W. Bush.
Mark Kingwell: FInding a universally accepted definition of "crossing" is an enterprise which has frustrated countless generations of thinkers. And which will now frustrate me.
Antiques Roadshow (U. K.): Chickens are highly collectible, and this one's road-crossing ability adds to its value. At the right auction, with the right bidders in attendance, I conservatively estimate that it would fetch in the vicinity of a million jillion zillion pounds.
Antiques Roadshow (U. S.): I'm afraid this chicken has been extensively restored. In mint condition you'd expect to get about 5 bucks a pound for it, but as is you'd be lucky to get that for the whole bird.
Air Canada: As a result of the continuing preference of chickens for travel by road, we have been forced to impose a surcharge of 7% on fares immediately and to cut flight crew salaries by 55%.
VIA Rail: CN chicken number...two...two...nine...for...Wawa...Nipigon/Red Rock...Atikokan...Flin Flon...Moose Jaw...Swift Current...Medicine Hat...Red Deer...Kamloops...and Nanaimo...has been cancelled. La poule du CN numéro...deux cent vingt-neuf...à destination de...St-Eustache...St-Joseph-du-Lac...St-Benoît...St-Placide...St-André-Est...St-Hermas...St-Sauveur-des-Monts...St-Jovite...St-Adolphe-de-Howard...et St-Michel-de-Wentworth...a été...annulée.
Don Cherry: She's Swedish! Need I say more?
Posted on April 17, 2003
Word Leaders Speak Out (also some Canadians) © Coolth, 2003
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