Obits From the Future

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice Dead at 95

By Ms. Sowerberry

April 18, 2050

Condoleeza “Condi” Rice, America’s first female African-American Secretary of State, passed away last Tuesday.  She was 95 years old.

In 2046, following her celebrated turns as diplomat, politician, professor, author and erotic film star, Rice retired to Uncle Tom’s Elder Plantation in Marin County, CA, where she organized and led a chamber orchestra called “The Negligente Nonagenarians.”  The group lived up to its name when another member left his clarinet case next to Ms. Rice’s piano bench, later causing her to trip and impale herself on the endpin of a nearby cello.

Born in Birmingham, AL in 1954 to Reverend John Wesley Rice, Jr. and Angelena Ray, Rice spent her youth studying French, figure skating, ballet, music and the effects of segregation on colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow wasn’t enuf (although Rice herself preferred the Anglicized spelling).

Rice graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Denver with a BA in political science and went on to earn her master’s degree and PhD in the same field from the University of Notre Dame and the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, respectively .  Rice’s first stint at the State Department came in 1977, under President Jimmy Carter, but left to complete her doctorate after exposure to the “goober president” triggered her peanut allergies.

In 1981, Rice was hired by Stanford University, where she rose quickly from her position as assistant professor to provost of the school in 1993.  During this period, Rice also served as director (later Senior Director) of Soviet and East European affairs under President George H. W. Bush, who famously boasted that Rice “told him all he needed to know about the Soviets.  And black people.”  President Bush’s son, future president George W. Bush, developed a schoolboy crush on Rice during her tenure with his father’s administration and, following his own election as POTUS,  employed her as foreign policy advisor, the nation’s first female National Security Advisor, and finally Secretary of State.  Bush II appointed Rice as Secretary of State following Colin Powell’s resignation and a marathon game of schoolyard game MASH which predicted that Bush II would live in a shack with Secretary of State Rice, where they would have 4 children and a marmot named Clyde.  Though few of the game’s other predictions came to fruition, Rice served as Secretary of State until Bush left office in 2009 and Rice presented Bush with a marmot on his 75th birthday.

Rice returned to Stanford University in 2009 as a political science professor and senior fellow of the Hoover Institute.  In 2018, Rice participated in President Sarah Palin’s revamp of the Republican party by appearing in several of Palin’s “Mama Grizzly Presductions” erotic films–described by Palin herself as “tasteful celebrations of women’s sexuality inspired by Victorian erotica, for men and women who agree that women should be wedded, corseted and not heard while being bedded.”  Originally conceived as thank you gifts for Republican campaign contributors, the films featuring Rice proved so popular that she starred as herself in her own trilogy, Sexretary of Spooge: The Secret of Jackie O’s Diaphragm, featuring Blaxploitation actress Pam Grier as Rice’s loose-cannon sidekick, Treasury Secretary Trixie Trilliant.  The films grossed over $9 billion worldwide, which producer/star Rice donated to balance the US national deficit in 2020.  The trilogy has been praised as the most electrifying depiction of mature female sexuality since 1985’s Cocoon.  The films were recently rereleased as part of Time-Life’s “Pornographic Politicos” series.

Rice became President of Stanford in 2031 and occupied that post until her retirement 14 years later.  Rice’s most notable contribution as President was the authorization of enhanced torture techniques for campus police attempting to identify and punish perpetrators of collegiate hijinx.  However, Rice later stated that she merely informed Stanford’s law enforcement that they had the authority to torture, not that she personally endorsed such techniques.

Rice’s body will lie in state at The National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, before being interred in Arlington National Cemetery.  Yo-Squared (the artist formerly known as Yo-Yo Ma), will accompany services on his cello–a controversial choice in light of the manner of Rice’s death. An only child and single woman, Ms. Rice leaves behind no survivors.