Tweets Through the Ages 

By Patrick F. Cannon

Twitter tweets seem all the rage these days. Since they are limited to 140 characters, they are ideally suited to people who would struggle to come up with a thought that would require more than that number. Thus, tweets are ideal for politicians and entertainers.

In modern times, the first notable tweeter was undoubtedly that most famous of canaries, Tweety Bird. Who can forget her (or is it his?) plaintive cry when suddenly there appeared that most fearsome of cats, Sylvester?  “I tawt I taw a puddy tat. I did! I did see a puddy tat!”, Tweety tweeted, thus entering the Twitter Hall of Fame.

Two recent inductees are Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump. Kim, she of the Rubenesque derriere, is married to that thought leader, Kanye West. Mr. West is given to controversial statements in his role as a public intellectual, causing the faithful (so far, anyway) Kim to tweet in his defense: “Kanye is a genius, even if he acts like a jerk.”

Donald Trump’s faithful followers, when not dragging their knuckles as they patrol our borders, can hardly wait for his daily tweets. When Muhammad Ali died, the Presumptive Trump did not disappoint, tweeting: “Only losers die. Who’s the greatest now?”

Alas, many of the great figures of history came before Twitter freed the banal from bondage. One can just imagine what some of their tweets might have been:

Moses. “If you hadn’t been dancing around that golden calf, and given me a hand, I could have brought all 20 commandments down. Then you really would have been in trouble!”

Darius. “Don’t let a few Greeks get in your way. All they’re good for is slinging hash.”

Julius Caesar. “Heed thee not soothsayers. The Ides of March indeed!”

Jesus Christ. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they might see the Kingdom of God, but peace on earth is clearly out of the question.”

St. Francis. “When you come right down to it, it’s all for the birds!”

Napoleon. “Waterloo? Just a little hick town until I put it on the map!”

Karl Marx. “After years studying the diuretics of history in the reading room of the British Museum, I can safely predict the death of Capitalism by 1900.”

Teddy Roosevelt. “Bully, bully, bully, bully, bully…”

Vladimir Lenin. “I can promise you that the state will eventually wither away, leaving only perfect harmony and freedom.”

Herbert Hoover. “I assure you that the economy is fundamentally sound. Just you wait and see, 1930 will see a return to prosperity.”

Groucho Marx (no relation to Karl). If you want to know the meaning of life, don’t ask some effete chain smoking Frenchman. Just ask my brother Harpo.

Franklin Roosevelt. “I assure you that the economy is fundamentally sound. Just wait and see, 1934 will see a return to prosperity.”

Josef Stalin. “I am always happy to recommend a vacation in Siberia to my fellow Russians. The climate is so bracing.”

Richard Nixon. “I am not a crook! I can afford to hire people to steal for me.”

Hilary Clinton. “I cannot tell a lie. It was actually me who cut down the cherry tree.”

Patrick F. Cannon. “If music be the food of love, then at least we’ll die with a song in our hearts.”

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Copyright, 2016, Patrick F. Cannon