PHHH #1057.9
Date: Sunday, September 4, 2005
Place: Princeton Day School and environs
Weather: Idyllic
Time: 1:15
Hare: Hand Solo
Hounds: Hey YO! Paully, Ouipee, Sjorn Dork, Homoerotic Tick Checking

Solo Named Director of FEMA

In a move that stunned Washington officialdom, President Bush fired Michael Brown, director 
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and replaced him with Hand Solo of Montgomery, NJ.

"Hand who?" responded Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, who 
was echoed by virtually everyone inside the Beltway or associated with the security and safety 
industries.

Mr. Bush was accompanied by a lanky, softspoken English expatriate in a lightblue tracksuit at 
the announcement in the Rose Garden.

"Mr. Solo has every qualification desirable for this position," said the president. "He has an 
outstanding track record--heh, heh, just kiddin'--in surviving ultramarathons and erlichiosis, 
and organizing rescue efforts throughout central New Jersey's least friendly land.
It's a good land, don't get me wrong, but it has problems. And Solo's fixed that, he's set 
some trails for some folks, but he's always found them and fed them, most times in less than 
three hours. Why, just Sunday, on shorter notice than we had about that hurricane, he put 
together a run uphill and down, let his boys find a pack of frogs, and get this, crayfish, and 
got'em all to the rescue center in daylight.

"And you know what? He's gonna get it done down south. It's tough down there. Tough. I can feel 
the pain. And pain's not good, freedom is.
We've let the good people of Louisiana and Mississippi down, but that's gonna stop, because the 
U. S. government is giving him $50 billion to fix it up, and that'll go a whole sight farther 
than the budgets he's used to up north. What'd you tell me, Solo, you fed that crew beer, 
guacamole, chips and cookies on four whole dollars? Doesn't get any better than that.

"And best of all," concluded the president, "if he screws up, we'll render him to Scotland Yard 
so fast it'll make his knickers spin.
Ain't I right, Solo?"

Mr. Solo appeared slightly discomfited at Mr. Bush's hearty slap on the back and by the 
proceedings. Reporters found his soft-spoken speech a near incomprehensible mixture of Midlands 
English, pidgin Japanese, and references to "shiggy" and someone called the Louisiana Reptile 
Fancier. Research on the internet (www.princetonol.com/groups/phhh/archive/899.4.txt) 
identified Solo as a member of the Princeton Hash House Harriers, an informal extreme running 
organization with no known fatalities or arrests, despite numerous citations.

"Wait until I pull it out before you pile in," he said to several astonished reporters as he 
left.