Venezuela, Aye Carumba

Venezuela's Jewish community and other living things in the area had better buckle up. It's aye carumba time. Hugo Chavez is in it for the long haul now that his referendum scrapping political term limits passed by 54% in Sunday's elections. It wasn't the first time that that country's president tried to push the referendum through, which only goes to prove that practice sometimes does make perfect.

He will now be eligible to run that country indefinitely like Fidel Castro and other luminaries before him. One way that Sr. Chavez turned the lightning rod into a sweetheart deal is that he took a clue from the "Choirboy's Manual" where he decided to share and share alike by inviting other choirboy politicians into the deal. It was that and that other political ally, fear, when he convinced the masses, many who are only known by "X" in legal documents, that many of the government's services would be cut off should another heck of a public servant take over. They ran to the poling place in droves.

Aside from that, some theories have cropped up as to what caused this win this mambo ride around. The election was either rigged, the dead rose to vote like they have been known to in Chicago, or someone poured tequila into the water system.

But now that it is a fait accompli, some drastic measures need to be taken before a man, whose career could have a longer shelf life than radium comes home to roost.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I have turned to Rule One in the "Handbook for Dealing with Despots" which says to stage a coup through the alimentary route. The bottom line is that inside me there lives a frustrated head chef at a presidential compound just waiting to come out. So using the cholesterol do's and don't taped to my refrigerator door, here's what would come to Chavez's palate in my role as head chef.

Breakfast: Three eggs in butter, several sides of bacon, toast with butter and jelly and diet tea to throw that guy off the trail, a good cigar.

Mid-morning snack: Cheese and crackers, other cigars

Lunch: Chopped steak and shrimp scampi, a carbonated beverage of choice, Red Bull energy drink.

Dinner: Shrimp scampi and chopped steak, carbonated beverage, pecan pie and coffee with heavy cream

Bedtime snack: A stomach pump

I would walk the palatial pooch for him and dissuade him from engaging in any exercise regimen that didn't involve donning heavy sweats in the Amazon heat and jogging up a mountain.

And the rest would be history.

And it's all because I hold two things to be true. One is that that country is headed south in a hand basket and fast, and the other is that I am lucky to be living in this country where I can write these kinds of things.