The Stupid, It Burns: Government at Work – In One Perfect Photo

Presidential Duties

We recently stumbled upon an image in one of the more obscure corners of the intertubes which we felt we had to share with our readers. It provides us with a nice metaphor for the meaningfulness of government activity. First, here is a look at the picture – just quietly contemplate it for while and let it work its magic on you:

Yes, these two gentlemen are actually watering a tree in the middle of a downpour… 

You may have noticed that the two gentlemen with the watering cans have two living umbrella-holders at their disposal. Obviously, they must be VIPs of some sort.

The tree getting victimized in the picture is actually a young fir, and one must fear that it will drown. Small firs do of course need water if they want to become big firs, but there can be too much of a good thing, and this may well be such a case.

We thought we’d never see anyone watering plants during a rainstorm while exuding such a solemn sense of duty. Normally one would expect such people to exhibit a somewhat more maniacal demeanor. This goes to show that there’s a first time for everything.

We were of course wondering who and what exactly we were looking at, and it turns out that the two gentlemen are Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, the president of Turkmenistan, and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, in the process of planting (and evidently, right away drowning) a fir at the Alley of Honored Guests near the Palace of Independence in Minsk.

Free Advice

We want to take this opportunity to dispense some free advice to the fathers of the young fir: it is probably not necessary to water plants while it is raining, as rain is reportedly quite wet all by itself (step out from underneath the umbrella next time, and you will see what we mean).

Still, the presidents have to be commended for not shirking their planting duties in the face of inclement weather, and we want to thank them for providing us with this moving image. And of course, we wish the fir all the best.