[Vision2020] City Council and the Pledge

[Carl Westberg]

I suggest the best short poem ever done.  It would fall well with the 15 
second paramater.  From Muhammad Ali.  "Me, Whee!"                           
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                   Carl Westberg Jr.


>From: Joan Opyr <joanopyr at earthlink.net>
>To: Vision2020 Moscow <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] City Council and the Pledge
>Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 11:08:45 -0800
>
>I'm sorry Melynda, Keely, Warren, Phil and Area Chuck Norris Dan; your 
>poems are all wonderful, but I must insist that Moscow City Council members 
>begin every session by reciting the following.  I was going to suggest 
>Dulce Et Decorum Est, but why get into that?  No, this is the right poem at 
>the right time, with a special nod to its inspiration, Rosemary Huskey.
>
>(My apologies for Kipling's use of the "S" word.  Different place, 
>different time, different vocabulary.)
>
>Joan/Auntie
>www.joanopyr.com
>
>The Female of the Species
>By Rudyard Kipling
>
>When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
>He shouts to scare the monster who will often turn aside.
>But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail,
>For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
>
>When Nag, the wayside cobra, hears the careless foot of man,
>He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can,
>But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail -
>For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
>
>When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
>They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws -
>'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale -
>For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
>
>Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
>For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
>But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the others tale -
>The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
>
>Man, a bear in most relations, worm and savage otherwise,
>Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise;
>Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
>To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.
>
>Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
>To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
>Mirth obscene diverts his anger; Doubt and Pity oft perplex
>Him in dealing with an issue - to the scandal of the Sex!
>
>But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
>Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same,
>And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
>The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.
>
>She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
>May not deal in doubt or pity - must not swerve for fact or jest.
>These be purely male diversions - not in these her honor dwells -
>She, the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else!
>
>She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
>As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate;
>And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
>Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.
>
>She is wedded to convictions - in default of grosser ties;
>Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him, who denies!
>He will meet no cool discussion, but the instant, white-hot wild
>Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.
>
>Unprovoked and awful charges - even so the she-bear fights;
>Speech that drips, corrodes and poisons - even so the cobra bites;
>Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw,
>And the victim writhes with anguish - like the Jesuit with the squaw!
>
>So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
>With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
>Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
>To some God of abstract justice - which no woman understands.
>
>And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
>Must command but may not govern; shall enthrall but not enslave him.
>And She knows, because She warns him and Her instincts never fail,
>That the female of Her species is more deadly than the male!
>
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