Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Note: We are sharing approximately every other story from Evening Soup with Basement Joe, and are now sampling Volume Three’s ninety chapters. In today’s episode, President Buckstop meets his newest soup aide, Russell Rhoades.
Careers, Education, and Friday Night Veggie Soup
Dateline: August 6. Begin Transcript:
“Hello? Am I in the right place?”
“Depends on where you’re going.”
“Oh. Yes, Of course. I’m supposed to bring some soup to…”
“Soup? Oh, goody, you’re here. Come on in… let’s see… what do we have…”
“Oh, is this it? I thought, well, I thought there would be guards, and, uhh, locked doors, and so forth, sir.”
“No need. Safe down here. Perfectly safe. Been here for most of the last year… year and a half, really…”
“Oh, I see, sir. Yes, I had heard that. Sir.”
“So let’s see, what do we have? I’m hungry!”
“Well, sir, this is Friday Night Veggie Soup, sir.”
“Are there crackers?”
“Yes, sir… right here, sir… Do i just set it here, on your desk, or do you eat at a different table or anything?”
“No, no… right here on the desk… that’s fine… soup, crackers… nmm…”
“And she sent down a stack of napkins, sir… and … umm… three soup spoons… this must be a mistake, they’re children’s soup spoons….”
“No mistake. Mmm… smells good. So tell me about yourself.”
“Me sir? Well, I just started today, sir… The agency called and asked if I’d be interested in a part time evening job… since college starts up again in a couple weeks and all my classes are during the day, it made sense, sir.”
“College? For what?”
“Mostly gen-eds, sir. Some criminal justice, sir. Thinking about going into criminal justice, though I’m not sure exactly how, sir.”
“Mmm…. Good choice. Lots of my team are in social justice. You can go far in that. Still not sure what it means, but there must be a lot of jobs in it.”
“Umm, not social justice, sir. I mean, that is, I’m not going into social justice, sir. I don’t think that’s actually a major, sir.”
“Oh, everything’s a major nowadays. Thought you said social justice though.”
“No, sir, criminal justice, sir. I’m thinking of going into criminal justice.”
“Subliminal justice? Not familiar with that one. Advertising and marketing, is it? Writing TV commercials with hidden messages? That sort of thing?”
“No, sir. Criminal justice, sir. You know, helping to catch and convict serious criminals, sir.”
“What for? The real money’s on the other side of that.”
“The criminals, sir?”
“Heh heh… no… I mean the defense side. A good defense attorney can make a killing.”
“It’s the killings, actually, that make me want to go into criminal justice, sir… I’d be going into it to clear the criminal element off the streets, sir.”
“What’s your name, anyway, kid?”
“Russell, sir. Russell Rhoades, sir.”
“So why do you want to go into criminal justice and be poor, Russell?”
“Well, sir, I’m not saying I want to be poor. Just that I think I want to help put criminals away, sir. Whether that means law enforcement or law school or private security, or what, sir, I’m not sure yet. So I’m taking classes at junior college until I decide, sir.”
“Mmm. So there’s still time for you. Mmm… This is good soup. There’s everything in this soup. Just Everything.”
“Yes sir. So, I’m taking classes, and reading the paper, and reading books about careers, and of course the newspaper… it’s all about choosing the right path for your life, you know, sir?”
“Huh?”
“Choosing a path, sir. I was saying that I’m trying to choose my career wisely, sir.”
“With a newspaper? What good are newspapers for that?”
“You learn about everything in a newspaper, sir. If you read it cover to cover. You find out about whole aspects of society that you never knew about, and all the different people who play roles in them.”
“From a newspaper?”
“Well, here, for example… my Dad’s an accountant. And when I was little, I thought that only meant one thing, one career option. But then Dad explained to me that an accounting degree can lead to the obvious, like an accounting firm full of CPAs, sure, but it can also lead to jobs in retail or wholesale, or manufacturing or distribution, in finance departments in accounts payable or accounts receivable or planning, sir.”
“Oh, I guess…”
“Or, an accounting degree can also lead to careers like being a finance instructor in high schools or colleges, or being the accounting expert at a software company that sells an ERP system… or jobs in financial markets or working for a bank…. or it can lead to government jobs, like the taxing authorities, or budget offices in each department or agency, sir.”
“Oh wow. I never thought about all that. All from an accounting degree?”
“Certainly, sir. And more besides.”
“So you’re thinking of accounting, huh? I can see why.”
“Oh, no sir. Not interested in that at all.”
“But, you just said…”
“Yes sir, because that’s the example my Dad gave me, because HE’S an accountant, sir.”
“Ohhhh….”
“Dad says, one of the big areas where the education system falls down is in showing students how many options there are in life, in terms of types of jobs and where to work and hours and salaries and so forth, sir. Most kids only know the careers of their parents and their parents’ friends.”
“Never thought of it that way.”
“So at my Dad’s urging, I’m trying to apply the same approach to my own career, sir.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, I look at the broad category of criminal justice, and I wrote down the obvious things first… police, military, lawyer, county prosecutor, federal prosecutor… and then I started hunting.”
“Hunting?”
“Yes sir, you know, reading a book, reading a newspaper article, surfing the internet… always on the lookout for things that are related to my goal that I might be able to do, that would be interesting and different, and still meet my goal of making the world a safer place, sir.”
“Oh yes, I’m in favor of making the world a safer place too. Been working on that for years.”
“How’s that, sir? I mean, it’s no secret that the world has become more dangerous in the last year… what do you mean your initiatives have helped the world be safer?”
“Well, uh, masks… we’re mandating masks… and using the bully pulpit to remind people to social distance… and telling businesses and schools to stay remote and not do anything in the buildings for another year….”
“That doesn’t make the world safer, sir! I mean, well, I’m sorry sir, but… none of that will make anything safer, sir. It’s all busywork, and some of it’s outright destructive… not to mention unconstitutional, sir!”
“Oh? Well I suppose you have a better way to make the world safe?”
“Well, sure, sir…. like, a security company might design a camera system that recognizes more criminal-style movement, or an ERP company might be designed to be harder to hack into, or a skyscraper could hire a security specialist who can design systems to make the company’s security approach more successful.”
“Oh.”
“And then there are all the different types of public and private law enforcement. So many different agencies, from local to federal… from local police to federal border patrol, from the intelligence services to the Department of Defense. I mean, look, the options are almost limitless, sir.”
“I guess. Never thought about trying to reduce crime. Hmm.”
“So for example, sir, just today I was reading the paper, and I saw this story about a bunch of MS-13 thugs.”
“Who’s that?”
“MS-13, sir.”
“Oh, right, terrible disease. Knew somebody who had that.”
“No, sir, not MS… Talking about the crime gang, sir. MS-13, sir. The one where their thugs are usually all tattooed up, sir. Mostly immigrants from Central and South America, sir. Really, really violent, awful people, sir.”
“Oh. What’s it called again?”
“MS-13, sir. You must have heard of it, sir. They’re huge.”
“Beats me. Maybe it’s the unlucky number. I can never remember anything with a 13 in it. Well, I can never remember anything at all, period.”
“Today, there was this article, sir, about a group of nine MS-13 thugs who’d been arrested in Tennessee over the past couple of weeks, sir.”
“Well, now, everyone’s innocent until proven guilty, boy…”
“And they HAVE been proven guilty, sir. Again and again.”
“Come on, man!”
“Oh, yes, sir. Check out the article, sir. These demons have been arrested and released, arrested and released, again and again, sir.”
“Oh, damn.”
“All arrested and convicted for crime after crime, sir. Robberies and beatings and rapes and murders, sir. And they kept getting out, from prison releases and stupid early paroles and worst of all, deportations, sir, so they’re back and ready to be caught again, sir.”
“How, can you be so sure they’re so bad?”
“Great short article in Breitbart today, sir. Showing their pictures and listing a bunch of their worst crimes, sir. Conviction after conviction, sir. Cocaine distribution, and witness tampering, and illegal firearm distribution, and murders, sir, so many murders. Kidnappings and murders during the commission of that crime, resisting arrest, and attempted murder in the commission of that crime, being caught selling drugs, and murders during those arrests… So many murders for a small group of people, sir. They’re just monsters, sir.”
“Could be our fault, you know. Ever stop to think of that? Maybe it was that they were steered wrong by our society, or by our schools, by mean kids, bigoted kids, in their classes, ever think of that?”
“Sir, some of these goons aren’t even from here. We can’t possibly be blamed for how they turned out, sir. Illegal aliens from El Salvador and Honduras and elsewhere… MS-13 is famous for being mostly either recently-arrived illegals from Central America, or people born here in illegal alien communities, sir.”
“So what do you want to do about them?”
“Well, sir, if you read the articles about this bunch, there’s only one thing that makes sense. Clearest case for capital punishment I’ve ever seen, sir.”
“Come on, man! Look, we can just deport them, you know.”
“And then they just come back, sir. The border is porous, remember?”
“No, we fly them deep into their countries, it’s hard for them to get back!”
“No, it’s not, sir. They fly back, or take the bus back, or drive back… Sometimes they’re back at our border, sneaking back in, within days, sir.”
“You don’t know that!”
“Well, sir, yes we do. Because then every time they’re caught again, they’re fingerprinted, so their deportation records can be studied. I remember one guy from the article… this one stuck with me… this one guy, despite multiple convictions, was just deported. Again and again, in 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2012. And he’s back again. Killing again. “
“Wow. Are you sure?”
“It was just in the papers today, sir. Yes indeed, no exaggeration. Four deportations they know of. When we deport hardened criminals, they just come back. They ALWAYS come back, sir.”
“And what do you think you can do to help with this alleged problem?”
“Alleged, sir?”
“Well? What do you think you can do about it?”
“I haven’t decided yet, sir. As I say, there are so many options. Policeman, border guard, warden, software developer, lawyer, researcher…. I just want the world to be a safer place. As long as there are politicians making the world dangerous, there have to be that many more people on the side of security, to try to make the country safer, sir.”
“I don’t what you think the point is, young man… the more you guys convict them, the more we’ll just release them anyway. You’ve got to see both sides of these issues, you know.”
“Oh yes, sir, we do. I certainly do look at both sides of these issues, sir. Especially on election day, sir, when it really counts.”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Three: How Is This Not Over Yet?”, available in paperback or eBook, exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
His newest nonfiction book, “Current Events and the Issues of Our Age,” was just released on July 1, and is also available, in both paperback and Kindle eBook, exclusively on Amazon.
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