"Hope Toast" - it had to happen!

I suppose this was inevitable . . .

We're used to such well-known celebrities as Jesus and the Virgin Mary mysteriously appearing on slices of toast - but now, an even more miraculous apparition has manifested itself on someone's breakfast. The glorious 'Hope Toast' features the beatific visage of St. Barack of Chicago, the President-Elect of Change.

Naturally, it is being sold on eBay.

The seller says describes the wonder-toast by saying: 'Barack Obama has miraculously appeared on a piece of toast I was preparing for breakfast. This is a one-of-a-kind item to celebrate his win as US President.'

In case that sounds a little vague, he goes on to add: 'The item is one piece of Wonder Bread that has been toasted. Nothing has been added to the bread - no butter or oils.'

The divine image, which is completely plausible and in no way faked, shows Obama The Redeemer in his most familiar pose, gazing upwards into the future with an expression of wise, empathetic determination. The image is well known to the faithful, having been captured by artist Shepard Fairey in his popular series of religious icons.

As of the time of writing, the Hope Toast has attracted one bid, of $20.

Since publication of that article, the bidding has been running along nicely. At 9.30 p.m. US Central time, after 19 bids, the high offer now stands at $207.50, with just under 21 hours to go before the auction closes.

(I'm thinking of buying it for my buddy Lawdog. He can have it for breakfast, spread thickly with West Texas chili and topped with huevos rancheros!)

Speaking of President-elect Obama, the Times of London reveals that he has some (wannabe) long-lost relatives.

Now Barack Obama is being claimed by not one but as many as 8,000 Beduin tribesmen in northern Israel.

Although the spokesman for the lost tribe of Obama has yet to reveal the documentary evidence that he says he possesses to support his claim, people are flocking from across the region to pay their respects to the “Beduin Obama”, whose social standing has gone through the roof.

“We knew about it years ago but we were afraid to talk about it because we didn’t want to influence the election,” Abdul Rahman Sheikh Abdullah, a 53-year-old local council member, told The Times in the small Beduin village of Bir al-Maksour in the Israeli region of Galilee. “We wrote a letter to him explaining the family connection.”

Mr Obama’s team have not responded to the letter so far but that has not dampened Sheikh Abdullah’s festivities.

He has been handing out sweets and huge dishes of baklava traditional honey-sweetened pastries to all and sundry, and plans to hold a large party next week at which he will slaughter a dozen goats to feed the village.

It was his 95-year-old mother who first spotted the connection, he says. Seeing the charismatic senator on television, she noted a striking resemblance to one of the African migrant workers who used to be employed by rich sheikhs in the fertile north of British Mandate Palestine in the 1930s.

The Africans would sometimes marry local Beduin girls and start families, though, like many migrant workers, would just as frequently return home after several years.

One of those men was a relative of Barack Obama’s Kenyan grandmother, Sheikh Abdullah maintains.

He estimates that his tribe extends to as many as 8,000 members, all of them loosely connected to the African-American senator for Illinois.

Sheikh Abdullah swears that he has papers and pictures to back up his claim but has promised his mother not to divulge them until he has presented them to Mr Obama, something he hopes will happen once his “relative” is in the White House.

“We want to send a delegation to congratulate him, and we know we’ll get an answer soon,” he grinned.

Sheikh Abdullah’s renown as the relative of the soon-to-be most powerful man on Earth has spread like wildfire among the Arab community of northern Israel, and especially among Beduins, a formerly semi-nomadic group of pastoralists corralled into townships by the modern state of Israel.

Two baby boys born into the sheikh’s large clan have even been named Obama.

“We knew he’d win,” the sheikh said, constantly interrupted by a barrage of phone calls from wellwishers and those hoping to cash in on his newfound wasta, an Arabic term denoting influence or clout. “We have always been a lucky family."

Hmmm . . . does anyone suspect, as I do, that the White House is about to receive a request for 'family aid' from a bunch of Bedouins, fairly shortly after the inauguration? I assume 'green cards' will be acceptable in lieu of cash!

(Then again - wasn't the White House referred to as a 'camel-lot' under a previous Administration?)



Peter