My fellow Americans: (Yea! Clap! Clap! Clap!) I come to you today to report on the state of your column — and it is your column because without you, I would be writing to myself which doesn’t make any sense. (Yea! Clap! Clap! Clap!)
I delayed my State of the Column in order that President Swivelhead (Booo! Hiss!) could tell us in his State of the Union address how he plans to make our great-grandchildren pay down the crushing debt they will inherit while he goes bopping around the country on Air Force staging photo ops. (Booo! Go back to Kenya!)

Let me say first that the state of this column has never been stronger. (Yea! Clap! Clap! Clap!) As always, I have fought to expose humor-impairment wherever I have found it and I will continue to do so! (Yeah! Yeah! Standing ovation!) It hasn’t been easy. Despite my best efforts, I have been unable to contact our Ambassador to Outer Space Cynthia McKinney, who is reported to be living on Uranus. (Pfft!) President Peanut has all but disappeared since discovering that his good buddy who runs North Korea seems intent on nuking us all (Pfft! Pfft!) and nobody gives a rat’s bottom what Rosie O’Donnell thinks about anything anymore. (Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!)

All is not lost, however. I am happy to report that after an exhaustive search I have been able to locate an executive producer-community jobs program that works at Georgia Public Broadcasting and makes more money that the governor. (Yea! Big Bird! Big Bird! Big Bird! Standing ovation!) I could not have found him, however, without the assistance of my good friends, Tickle Me Elmo and the Cookie Monster. (Aaaaw! Clap! Clap! Clap!)

The past year did bring many challenges. As all of you know, I opposed the charter school amendment and got rolled like a cheap cigar. (Booo!) I was called a “liberal” by three right-wing nuts this year — a new record. (Booo!) And once again, Gov. Deal ignored my whining and pandering and did not see fit to appoint me to any board, commission, committee or agency. (Booo!)

It saddens me to report that I made an inadvertent error in a recent interview with House Speaker David Ralston regarding ethics reform. (Whoa!) I said that people had been trying to get the “Speaker and I” together. I should have said “the Speaker and me.” (Whoa! Whoa!) That engendered a fair amount of tut-tuts about nominative and substantive cases (Groan!) but none of the grammarians indicated that they give a fig about the fact we might be finally getting around to limiting lobbying expenditures in Georgia. (Booo!) Something tells I (wink! wink!) that they missed the point. (Ha! Ha! Ha!)

I would be remiss at this point not to mention my colleague, Junior E. Lee, general manager of the Yarbrough Worldwide Media and Pest Control Company, located in Greater Garfield, Georgia (Yea! Clap! Clap! Clap!) I had hoped Junior could be here today but he has been in Nunez, spraying Orson Sprogg’s yard for kudzu bugs and is currently soaking in the bathtub trying to get the stink off him. He sends his regards. (Yea! Go Junior!)

Much credit is due those who have enthusiastically shared their opinions with me (or is it “I’?) as I (or is it “me’?) attempt to make this column an oasis of serenity in an otherwise cacophonous cosmos. (Yea! Clap! Clap! Clap!) That includes know-it-all Yankees who think we in the South all marry our second cousins (Booo!); Baptists who think a woman can be president of the United States, but not in their pulpit (Booo!); and supporters of the You-Know-Who Institute of Technology who can’t stand the fact that scholar-athletes at the University of Georgia always beat their scholar-athletes in football and that we have had 19 Rhodes Scholars to their three; (Go! Dawgs! Woof! Woof! Woof!)
A special nod to all the left-wing nuts that want to restrict our right to bear arms but not restrict illegal immigrants with phony Social Security cards from coming into our country and taking our jobs (Booo!) and to right-wing nuts who believe Agenda 21 will give the United Nations control of all zoning in Putnam County. (Ha! Ha! Ha!) I love them all. (Yea! Clap! Clap! Clap!)

In closing, let me thank all of you for your continued support. May God bless the humor-impaired. And may we never forget — there is no “I” in “me”! (Thunderous applause! Standing ovation!)

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at yarb2400@bellsouth.net or P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139.