The Moron's Almanac
A R C H I V E

 
J a n u a r y   2 0 0 1
 

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Political Precedent
On January 30, 1798, congressmen Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold had the first fistfight in the House of Representatives.

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Bad Hair Week
Jan 25 - Since last Saturday, religious police working for the Taliban's Ministry of Vice and Virtue in Kabul, Afghanistan, have arrested and jailed 22 barbers for giving haircuts like that sported by Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.   In related news, Taliban soldiers forced Afghanis off buses bound for Pakistan on Thursday.  Over 110,000 Afghan refugees have fled to Pakistan in recent months.   "Soon we will send a team to Pakistan to find a way to solve this problem," said the Taliban's frustrated Minister of Refugees, Abdul Majeed Omari.   Leonard DiCaprio had no comment.

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Save the Haggis
Jan. 24 - January 25 is Burns Night in Scotland.  Each year on this night millions of Scottish families gather around their tables to honor the memory of national poet Robert Burns over a ritual meal of Haggis.  It's a celebration of Scottish culture.   Scottish culture!  Do they really think anyone would put up with bagpipes, haggis, or men in skirts if they weren't backing it up with whisky and golf?

According to People against the Indefensible Treatment of Haggis (PITH), more than eight million Haggis were "ranched" for this year's festivities.  Over six million of these ranch-bred Haggis, beside whom the veal calf might well be considered pampered, were sold to Scots who will take them home, skin them alive, boil them long enough to loosen their joints (but not enough to kill them), then pluck the wretched, half-dead, kind-hearted creatures apart bone by bone.  The two million not sold by January 25 are tossed into enormous blenders, mixed with fresh cream, frozen, and later sold as the popular Scottish summer treat, "Haggis Ice."

I ask American readers to reflect on our own Groundhog's Day.  Each February 2, we honor the prognosticative skills of that curious little creature in a vast national celebration.  How many groundhogs must die for this celebration?  None.  How many groundhog mothers are separated from their groundhog children in order to satisfy our national groundhog needs?  None. How many grandfathers stand at the heads of their dinner tables, proudly presiding over the dismemberment of a skinned and half-dead groundhog?  As if.

The Scots could learn a thing or two about ethical animal treatment from us. We could also teach them a thing or two about men's wear.  Please, take a moment to raise awareness of the Haggis's plight.  You can start by sending this article to all your friends and family, and urging them to email their outrage directly to: presiding.officer@scottish.parliament.uk

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But It Was Never Istanbul
Jan 24 - Last week, just hours before the government's announcement that he hadn't been assassinated, President Laurent Kabila of Congo was assassinated.  His son is expected to be sworn in as his successor on Thursday.  The late president overthrew dictator Joseph Desire Mobutu of Zaire in 1997, and renamed the country Congo.

Prior to being Zaire, Congo had been Congo.

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The Crapper
Jan 16 - Thomas Crapper died on January 17, 1910. Unfortunately, there is little historical evidence to support Mr. Crapper as anything but a friendly British plumber.

I say unfortunately because the world is ambiguous enough as it is, and the toilet is one of a very few things that can be counted on to acquit itself without any ambiguity. Having a toilet in the home improves our quality of life enormously; the contributions of most other appliances pale by comparison. Like other vital but widely available amenities, however, a toilet's importance is most strongly felt in its absence. Most of us have had at least one experience where we've made a hefty contribution to a toilet only to discover afterwards that it won't flush. Can you not remember the horror as you stared down into the bowl and wondered what to do? Can you not remember the icy panic that gripped you as you noticed that not only wouldn't the toilet flush, but that the water was rising?

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Notable Birthdays
On January 17, 1860, Anton Chekhov was born in Taganrog, Russia. He practiced medicine well into middle life. By then, of course, he was almost good enough to quit practicing, but he'd also made a name for himself as a writer. As a doctor and writer of comedies, Chekhov originated the saying "laughter is the best medicine" (some of his tubercular patients disagreed, but they subsequently died, proving his point). Chekhov should not be confused with Chekhov, who was the security officer of the USS Enterprise, and neither of them should be confused with Charo.

Also born on January 17 was Al Capone, in 1899. Chronic self-esteem problems in his early adolescence resulted in his turning to a life of crime in Chicago, where crime had by now trickled down from elected officials to the lower classes. Capone was such a successful gangster that eventually Robert DeNiro had to play him. In the end, Capone was captured by Elliot Ness and his "Untouchables," who got their name from the fact that their busy schedules prevented them from changing their underwear.

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Advise, Consent. . .  Fire!
Jan 16 - According to Section 2 of the Constitution, the president "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for. . ."

You're going to hear a lot about Advice and Consent in the next few weeks--in the next few days, probably more advice than consent.   Try not to get worked up.  Our founding fathers were geniuses not because they set up a smooth- running machine, but because they established one of the most awkward and contradictory governments ever to have bumbled across the face of the earth.

One of the important restrictions they built into our government is that nothing can be done by fiat.  (This will come as no surprise to anyone who's owned an Italian sports car.)  Checks and balances abound, and the executive nomination process is full to choking on them.

In 1789, the Senate rejected President Washington's appointment of Benjamin Fishbourn, of Georgia, primarily because Georgia's Senator James Gunn thought he was a pain in the ass.  The Senate's willingness to cut a nominee off at the knees on the whim of his or home state's Senator came to be known as "senatorial courtesy."  It is now a venerable tradition.

In more than 200 years of advice, consent, dissent, libel, slander, character assassination, and other senatorial courtesies, countless nominees have had their sanity questioned, their private lives dissected, their families scrutinized, and their honeymoon videotapes broadcast as one group or another sought to torpedo their nominations.

It's an ugly, gruelling, unfair, and extremely entertaining process, but, like everything else in this best of all possible worlds, it's all for the best and couldn't possibly be any better.  By giving nominees this test of fire, the stupidest, weakest, and most dangerously demented of them are weeded out, and only the cleverest and most deceitful bastards are granted senatorial consent.  We certainly need clever and deceitful bastards in the Executive and Judicial Branches if they're going to have any hope of holding their own against the nutjobs we elect into the Legislative branch.

Nominees for federal posts in the executive branch are given fair warning. The US Office of Government Ethics has a list of "Fourteen Principles of Ethical Conduct for Federal Employees (Executive Order 12674)," and the importance of these principles is certainly impressed upon potential nominees. Those principles are irresponsibly paraphrased below:

1. Employees should be good Americans.
2. Employees shouldn't have outside interests confictling with their jobs.
3. Employees shouldn't use private government information to get rich.
4. Employees shouldn't take bribes.
5. Employees should try real hard always to do their best.
6. Employees shouldn't deliberately commit the government to hare-brained schemes.
7. Employees shouldn't use public office to get rich.
8. Employees should act impartially.
9. Employees shouldn't use Federal property in ways for which its use was not intended.
10. Employees shouldn't go job-hunting on the government's dime.
11. Employees should rat each other out.
12. Employees should pay their taxes, obey the law, etc.
13. Employees shouldn't judge people based on their color, sex, age, gods, etc.
14. Employees shouldn't just be good, they should also look good.

In case these general principles are too complicated, the government provides helpful examples like the following:   "Ralph may bring a jar of macadamia nuts to his boss when he returns from his vacation to Hawaii."  (Useful as these examples may be, they leave some important questions unanswered.  For instance, how the hell did a low-level clerk like Ralph get the money for a trip to Hawaii?  And what if his boss is allergic?)

The brilliant thing about these standards is that they rule out the entire human race.  The Senate has access to plenty of fine ethical points on which to impale virtually any nominee.  Given such power, they aren't shy about using it.  They use it to grandstand.  They use it to avenge themselves.   They use it to make political points.  They use it for no discernible earthly purpose.  Their constituents love it.

Meanwhile, the nominating executive and his cronies get to mutter, fume, and shake their fists.  Their consituents love it.

Someone once said good politics was government, and they've never been corrected.  Take a moment to give thanks for bad politics--for the ugly, knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred poltical slugfest that is our country's executive nomination process.

It beats the hell out of a Giants-Ravens Superbowl.

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The Customer Always Has Rights
Jan 15 - An article in Monday's New York Times describes New York Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik's plans for sweeping changes in the NYPD's interaction with the public.

In Commissioner Kerik's vision, the New York police will soon be serving, protecting, and offering brand name merchandise at significant savings.  It's all part of Mr. Kerik's plan to "use a customer service model similar to that used by Wal-Mart stores."  Greeters will cheerfully welcome irate New Yorkers, bail bondsmen, and attorneys alike as they pass through the precinct station doors, and ATM-like kiosks will give New Yorker's increasing flexibility in selecting law enforcement services.  Suspects will be read their Miranda rights to soothing musical accompaniment, cruisers will be stocked with mineral water and crudités, and holding cells will offer posture-enhancing seating, microwave ovens, and day-care.

Evil rat bastards will be clubbed firmly but gently, and broomsticks will be sanitized between each sodomization.

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Historical Aside
On January 16, 1547, Ivan the IV crowned himself the first Czar of Russia.  He spent the early years of his reign making Russia bigger, acquiring land by means of a simplified approach to real estate.  He spent the latter years of his reign making Russia smaller by killing Russians.  He was therefore Terrible, and should not be confused with the other Ivans (Ivan the Great, Ivan the Magnificent, Crazy Ivan, Ivana Trump, etc).

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Putin Perspective
Jan 13 - Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Russian newspaper editors in the Kremlin on Saturday to assuage concerns that his government was trying to curb Russia's free press.   President Putin assured the gathered scribes that he fully supported the freedom of Russia's fourth estate, but that "illegal and extremist ideas" had no place in public discourse.  He did not specifically identify those ideas but did observe that, "the ideas and objectives of society should be clearly formulated, and a single informational space is a major condition."

In May of last year, armed and masked government officials raided the offices of Russian news organizations as part of an early effort to create a single informational space for the Putin administration.   Highly placed sources claim that President Putin himself had to be forcibly dissuaded from appearing armed and masked at Saturday's meeting and was outraged when informed that the media representatives would not be blindfolded.

As one media correspondent at Putin's press conference observed, "President Putin. . .  not. . .  will. . .  did. . .  however. . .  so. . .  and. . .  there.    He. . .  but. . .  wouldn't. . .  alligators, sumo wrestlers, or flat-chested midgets."

As a gesture of goodwill, Putin allowed several reporters to leave the meeting with less than five lashes.

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Be All You Can Be a Has Been
Jan 10 - The United States Army, a government organization responsible for the defense of our nation and the annihilation of villainous bastards elsewhere, announced on Wednesday that it had decided to drop its twenty-year old "Be All You Can Be" recruiting campaign in favor of a "fresh and contemporary" new one.

Army Secretary Louis Caldera told a Pentagon news conference on Wednesday that the old campaign had no longer been inspiring enough young men and women to join the army.  Working with advertising agency Leo Burnett, the Army began casting about for a new campaign last summer.  They finally settled on "An Army of One," which, in addition to being adequately fresh and contemporary, also reflects the military's reluctant willingness to comply with truth in advertising standards.

"We kicked this thing around for a while," one knowledgeable source observed.  He shared some of the other slogans that made the short list, inlcuding "Please, Please Join the Army," "Everybody in Fatigues," and "Army: Even If You're Gay!"  The runner-up was "We'll Give You a Gun."

The new campaign will also feature a new logo, a white star superimposed over a yellow star.  The white star represents a white star, whereas the yellow star doesn't.

Caldera said he was tremendously inspired by the new campaign, and was visibly moved by the press release from which he read.

The new ads will be broadcast for the first time Thursday night during Friends.

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The Meat Formerly Known as the Other White Meat
Jan 11 - In a weirdly related story, the government announced Thursday that farmers had voted to eliminate the federally-supervised program that's been  mysteriously and ubiquitously promoting pork as "the other white meat" for fifteen years.  The original white meat has never been publicly disclosed.

Hog farmers have been charged a fee on each of their hogs as a mandatory contribution to the program.  The contribution consists of forty-five cents out of every hundred dollars in hog sales.  The money goes to the "quasi-governmental" National Pork Board, which then pays the National Pork Producers Council to promote "other white meats"--for example, bacon, sausage, and ham--to the public.

Pork consumption in the United States was about 67 pounds per person annually when the promotion began in the mid-1980s.  Consumption is now at an annual rate of about 67 pounds per person.

Pork comes from pigs.  Pigs are raised by hog farmers.  The United States is the world's second-largest pork producing nation.  The largest exporter of pork in the world is Denmark.  The Danish word for pork is svin.  Or gris. 

Either way.

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Democrat Angered by Republican
Jan 11 - On Tuesday night, President Clinton told a group of Democratic supporters in Chicago that he believed "the only way [Republicans] could win the election was to stop the voting in Florida."   President-elect Bush's transition team reacted on Wednesday, calling on Clinton to honor the tradition of presidents leaving office with respect for their successors.

Craig Haskill, a Republican insurance adjuster from Queens, agreed with the Bush team's criticism, and said so.   Nelson Parks, a Queens retailer and a lifelong democrat, was angered by Haskill's statement and said so. 

The two men bickered for several minutes.

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