Ode To a NPR Centrist

a parody of Jack London’s Ode to a Scab

Christina Bishop
2 min readAug 31, 2023

After God Made the red-shoed wolf Garrison Keilor, the Grusome Newt Gingrich, Rotten Rush Limbaugh, and Denis Prager he bestowed upon the world the NPR Centrist. An NPR Centrist is a two-legged creature with such diluted ignorance of the voices of the tired and the poor that it only hears music when the money hits the floor. Whereas strong young people have honesty, the NPR Centrist uses bribery and if you don’t give enough then they judge and blame dishonestly.

Photo by Teddy Charti on Unsplash

When they drive down a dirt road it’s always a white car, with puzzle piece stickers and NPR. When they walk the streets they avoid the earth they walk a concrete sidewalk. In Hell, the devil himself laughs, and the angels in heaven ask Saint Peter why Martin Luther rips up his Wireless Catalogs. They get coffee from Starbucks, have never set foot in an Amazon warehouse, and never hire the disabled and disadvantaged. If god forbid the child of an NPR centrist read Karl Marx, Max Weber, or any decent upon their snobbery and dullness about the way things are they are dammed by their flesh and blood to see the world in shades of pink cotton candy! To curse one's flesh and blood is a sin for the poor are blessed with wealth and the meek inherit the earth, the NPR Centrist has no heart to love the poor and meek.

Every dollar you give is the bark from a tree, every gold statue you win comes from the earth, and the water you drink comes from the river that joins the lake. The Onceler made Thneeds, Keilor made Lake Wobigon, Disney made Fantasyland, and Hitler made Mein Kampf yet like them the NPR Centrist has always done nothing and gave nothing. No matter how much you give to the NPR Centrist, your car, your land, your house, your garden how much have they given back? Give to the unions, give to the migrants, the poor, the disabled, and the needy. Give because you have one life on this earth in your body and your soul.

#UnionStrong

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Christina Bishop

Tuba player, creator of Struwwelkinder and The Flying Circus Orchestra