PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION ON THE IMPORTANCE OF AIR AND WATER

THE PRESIDENT: Air and water - as Americans, we encounter these essential commodities around us on a daily basis, even depending on their existence for our very survival. As such, they are ubiquitane, and we honor them in their essentialness - offering thanks to the father of Jesus Christ for having the foresight and wisdom to place them here on this planet that we call our earthly home.

During childhood, air and water provide us with valuable structure and a shared frame of reference as we mature and evolve from diaper wearing babies into pre-teen young persons. One is the liquid that dilutes our Tang, and the other the invigorating gas that pushes schoolyard taunts from our heaving lungs. As we grow older and more important, so too do air and water - filling our in-ground swimming pools and coursing through the central air conditioning units that insulate us from the searing heat of Texas summers.

But let us not forget, just as air and water are essential to the human organism, they are also the lifeblood of the industrial establishment that puts processed food in the mouths of every last American man, woman, and child. From cooling the nuclear reactors that provide electricity to our slaughterhouses, to graciously and painlessly absorbing the exhalations of countless factory smokestacks, air and water have a long and proud tradition of happily doing whatever needs done to ensure the continued expansion and profitability of American enterprise. And for that, we salute them.

Some of my esteemed colleagues in the Democratic party may maintain that air and water are not to be trusted, having unleashed untold misery upon the people of our country in the form of floods, tornadoes, and the collaborative effort that is El Niño. To these persons I say that while we may hate air and water's occasional sins, we can and must continue to love the sinners themselves - though fickle and often cruel to trailer parks they may be.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, in accordance with a joint resolution of Christie Whitman's Environmental Protection Agency approved May 14, 2001, do hereby proclaim July 17, 2001 to be Industrial Air and Water Appreciation Day. I encourage all Americans to express their acknowledgement of the vital contributions these substances have made to our bodies, our communities, and the very fabric of our moist and wind-swept nation.

Thank you.

END 11:38 A.M. EST