ADullAche

Did I see what I saw?

Did I see North Korea voluntarily destroy one of their nuclear cooling towers?

Did I hear what I heard?

Not one shot fired?

No one invaded any sovereign nations who didn’t invade us?

No bunker busters?

No fortified Humvees?

Not even a single water boarding approved at the highest levels?

What kind of foreign policy is that?

This is the George Bush Administration.

The George W. Bush Administration, not to be confused with that sushi pukin’, “read my lips” talkin’ other George Bush – George H. W. But to his credit, he also invaded Iraq, but wimped out and did nothing when the wall fell and all of eastern Europe was ripe for the taking.

I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

That’s right, I’m calling you out Dubya – you’re a candy ass.

You used diplomacy. We have warehouses full of nukes and you’re chatting-up other countries.

When did we start making deals with dictators?

What are we, France!?

We didn’t elect you to talk. Hell, after almost eight years, we all know you can’t.

Where’s the man of action, the guy who didn’t think about what he said or did, he just said and did it? Where’s that flight suit? That’s what we want; not some pansy who cuts deals with hard core Commies.

What’s next, have Hezbollah to the White House for lunch?

We’ll become an international laughing stock. We’ll have a president who people think can actually be reasonable. He’s given up golf and now he’s talking to other countries. Is that the image you really want for the leader of the free world?

This just wont do.

So man up, mama’s boy, and take out Iran before you go…at least you’ll save some of your legacy.

Look, I’m the first to admit I tend to over-react now and again, and there have been times when I may have read a bit more into something than was really there and shouted the end of the world was nigh. (I’m not giving up on Bush yet, he still has until Jan 20 to bring about Armageddon, so if you have real estate in Tehran, you might want to think about selling.)

Granted, this entire political season has thrown all of us off our games a bit, and yes, I was pretty sure when the Democratic race came down to a black man and a white woman, things were getting a little weird, and when the rich white woman called the black man an “elitist,” I started looking for those four guys and their specifically colored ponies.

A black man is now the presumptive nominee for the presidency of the United States, yet, somehow, the world has not become one all cleansing conflagration, so I might have overstated things…a bit.

But now I have irrefutable proof that the end of days is right around the corner, so don’t go shopping for bottled water and Spam because I already bought it all. (Although I’m not sure how Spam can save anyone from acts of divine retribution.)

The sign that tells me the sword of Damocles is about to fall is this ad that showed up in my mailbox yesterday: “A symbolic display of devotion…THE MEN’S STERLING SILVER NAIL CROSS. Artisans have taken a symbol of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice, the nails of the cross, and fashioned them into a sterling silver cross pendant.”

The ad is on an 8”x11” piece of heavy stock, complete with return, post paid replay card, the rest of the text is a combination of salesmanship and evangelizing (yes, I know they’re the same thing.) On the whole it’s no cheesier than those mailers trying to sell you commemorative plates or NASCAR bobble-heads.

The reason the Sterling Silver Nail Cross flyer is a portent of a bad end for us all, is it came packaged in the wrapping with my monthly copy of PLAYBOY.

Yes, PLAYBOY.

I’ll give you that PLAYBOY is pretty tame, actually lame stuff these day. (I can spend 30 seconds on line and find porn that would make even the most perverted centerfold blush.) So, as the old joke goes, I really do get it for the articles.

But that’s not the point.

The point is, PLAYBOY, icon of the sexual revolution, the magazine that used to sell those dopey ‘man sign’ necklaces, is shilling for a company that wants you to spend $100 bucks on your faith. The ad is placed on top of the magazine, you see the cross before you see the cover.

So you tell me, am I over reacting, or do you want to trade me two cans of peaches for a can of Spam.

Here’s yet another sign that you need to set four extra places at the table (and don’t seat Pestilence next to War, they don’t get along) – the price of shit is soaring.

Along with oil, wheat, rice and anything else that used to cost less, the price of Peruvian guano is going up, up, up. (You can read all about here: New York Times)

Like most of history, this has happened before. There was quite a bit of guano intrigue in the 19^th century, wars were even fought over it…something we seem to be familiar with in the 21^st Century. (The product is different, the war is the same.)

For now, let’s forget about this being a cautionary tale, let’s ignore the political parallels about greed and imperialism (who would have thought we’d dig up that word again), and let’s focus on the really important issue here: if the price of bird shit is going up, there must be something laying around the house that could make us all a few extra bucks.

Many years ago, I used to hear a guy on the radio who told us to save our butter paper. Yes, the paper that butter is wrapped in. I don’t recall why, but I’ll bet it had something to do with the coming Apocalypse and how it would be currency in the distopic future, which has now arrived thanks to Bush Co. – so I check the NASDAQ every day for the butter paper indexes.

I’m also sneaking around the neighborhood, ‘collecting’ all the sidewalk chalk I can find. (You know those big pieces of colored chalk kids use to decorate everything, including your new Prius.) Turns out most of that stuff is made in China, and like every child’s toy made in China, it’s full of lead. With all the lead they’re putting in stuff, it’s got to be running low…lead could be next year’s gold.

So rummage through the shed and comb the backyard, because I’ll bet with a little imagination and a small touch of insight, we could all be rich as Cheney in no time…and without selling our souls.

A quick look at history tells us Regan’s trickle down theory was a bust. The rich got richer and the rest of us, well…we’re still the rest of us. However, as these things often go, the theory is sound, just misplaced.

In the current political climate it’s not economics that trickled down, but language; the parsing of words, the specificity of phrasing all the wannbe presidents use to run themselves up while running the other fella down. (Yeah, I said ‘fella.’ Just yesterday in Indiana, Paul Gipson, president of a steelworkers local, said Hillary has “testicular fortitude,” and if anyone knows testicles, it’s steelworkers…and Hillary…every night before she goes to sleep she gets to see Bill’s in that jar she keeps on the nightstand.)

This intentional – while at the same time hazy – use of language is relatively new. Back in Eisenhower’s day he just said stuff to confuse everyone, Nixon out and out lied, and Bush can barely put together a coherent sentence.

It came to our intention with First Gentleman in Waiting Bill Clinton’s “what is, is?”

Things have gone downhill from there.

In this election year it seems it’s not enough to “denounce” or “repudiate” you have to “reject” – as we learned with Obama and Farrakhan and now Obama and Wright…unless it’s not enough to “reject” and “repudiate” and you have to “renounce.” I’m pretty sure you have to do one of those and not the other if you want to run things… and you have to be fairly uncertain about the meaning of “torture.”

That’s not the problem. The trouble is now this kind of thinking has filtered down through our social fabric and last night it made its way into a kid’s 9-10 year old recreational league baseball game. (A rec league means everyone plays, regardless of talent, so expectations are low.) When I read the rules it seemed to say sportsmanship is paramount, no harassing the other team when they’re up at bat, none of the ol’ “Hey batter, batter, swing.”

But I was hearing plenty of “hey, batter, batter,” from both sides.

Well, it turns out one of the coaches – a clever lawyer who didn’t want to go to law school but play in the big leagues, and if not for an enormous lack of talent would have – read the rule carefully and found as long as the kids didn’t say “swing,” the could say, “hey batter, batter” all night long.

They could say, “hey batter, batter spit,” “hey batter, batter dance,” “hey batter, batter vote Gore as a write-in”, just not “hey batter, batter swing.”

Once again the letter of the law trumps the spirit of law, and common sense. Yeah, we’re leaving a real nice world for our kids to take over.

Ah, April is here again and it brings the annual “tradition like no other.” Now that may not mean much to you, but to those of us who flail vainly at the little white ball—then rage at the gods when that same little white ball defies the laws of physics and doesn’t fall in the hole—it means the traditionality of golf’s greatest prize; the green jacket of the Masters.

Other sports, even other golf tournaments, have trophies. The Masters has a trophy, but it’s the green sport coat—a green sport coat that doesn’t match anything—that makes this tournament golf’s brightest, dare I say lightest, star.

There may be some golf fans out there—whose mothers flirted with communism while they were in utero—who prefer the more proletariat US Open, or even the century and a half old Open Championship played across the pond. Those tournaments may have a sense of history, but for the pure soul of golf, you’d be hard pressed to match the traditionalism of Augusta National Country Club.

The last chairMAN of the club was named Hootie. If you’re going to walk around in a green sport coat and let folks call you Hootie, you have to know something most people don’t. We don’t know what Hootie didn’t know, but what Hootie did know was how to wrap himself in traditioness, how to run things, and he knew all the white people.

Golf is a complex game and that complexion needs to be guarded. Why do you think they have rules about how far technology can take the golf club, and how far tort legislation can take the Golf Club?

Lincoln’s ill conceived legislation of 1863 might have ended the “tradition like no other” if it weren’t for the stalwarts like Hootie. What would Augusta National be if it was like other clubs and had a tradition like many others? You just can’t fling traditionhood around like a putter that cost you a double nassau on the 18^th. That’s why Lee Elder didn’t get to play in the Master’s until 1975. You have to protect golf or it just becomes baseball after 1947.

Augusta National and the Masters are stewards of traditionalistic thought. It’s bigger than golf; its goes back to the time honored customs of Triangle Trade and the Middle Passage. That’s why the caddies wear those elegant white jumpsuits with their master’s names on the back—that way we’ll always know who’s who. The membership doesn’t want to confuse things and end up doing something nontradionalistical, like when they let Ron Townsend become a member in 1990. “Traditions like no other” need a vision, even if that vision seems a little blurry to those who lack traditionicity.

In the last decade or so Tiger Woods has won four green jackets, something of a tradition in itself. It’s probably why Hootie retired—seeing such an untraditioning wounded him. Hootie should have stuck around because Tiger’s tradition will eventually end and become a tradition like other traditions, leaving us the “tradition like no other.” This is the Masters lesson to us all; it’s steadfast, it’s embedded, it understands the heart of tradition is a traditionism you simply can’t change—if you do, you might as well let women join the club.