Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

After having shown my loyalty online for several weeks, I finally received the thing for which I had wished continually:  an invitation to the Smitherman secret headquarters!  I arrived at Smitherman’s North Avondale home, and slipped around to the back, banging the few short taps of the secret knock onto the storm door.  Tracy Gragston answered, asking the secret question, “How many roads must a man walk down?” I answered, feeling like I had the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything.  Gragston opened the door, and led me to the study, where he tugged on a book—the bylaws of the NAACP—revealing a secret tunnel leading downward into a labyrinth.

When I arrived, everyone was present.  In addition to Gragston, there was Justin Jeffre and the entire Green Party.  There was Jim Clingman, too.  He was hypnotizing a crowd of future converts, dangling an old pocketwatch before their sheepish eyes.  Their conversion was almost complete.

Sitting on a throne was Smitherman himself.  After I bowed, and kissed his ring, I asked what I could do to serve.  I pledged my allegiance, promising to do whatever necessary to get him elected to City Council.  He bedazzled me with promises of material for blog entries once elected.

We discussed the plan to take over the NAACP, and how once Smitherman was a Cincinnati City Councilmember and president of the Cincinnati NAACP, there would be no stopping us!  The sheer force of those two political positions, when combined, would put Smitherman in line to become the next dictator of Earth!

I was promised my very own Deanship—one far more expansive than of Cincinnati alone.  Perhaps The Dean of Hamilton County, or even The Dean of Ohio!  If I played my cards right, perhaps I could land myself The Dean of The U.S.A.  Such an honor would only come if I swore to do whatever Smitherman asked, forevermore.

He handed me a small packet.  It was a list of the next week’s worth of blog entries. I pledged to post them, according to the schedule he gave me.

Thank you for reading (and printing from) The Cincinnati Beacon.