nobody asked…

How many times must we be subjected to Bush’s nu-cu-ler? It is curious, disgusting, and frightening that a person could matriculate (no, Georgie, that is not a dirty word) and graduate from Yale, go on to be elected/selected Governor of a great state and then President of the United States, and still be so inept with American English. His language and communications skill levels must be about third grade, though I have known second graders who could construct better sentences, and ones that actually made sense!

The words to describe Bush’s general problems with the language are well know to us: inept, incompetent, stupid. At least we can credit him with consistency since his management and presiding styles incorporate these same characteristics, all tightly bonded together by a heavy application of unjustified arrogance. There is also a word to specifically describe his nu-cu-ler pronunciation.

epenthesis: n. the insertion or development of a sound or letter in the body of a word.
Examples: a-tha-lete instead of athlete, nu-cu-ler instead of nuclear, cum-ber-bund instead of cummerbund.

Prior to the next Presidential election, let us all spend a bit of time and energy focusing on questions such as:

Can the candidate make a speech or hold their half of a conversation without embarrassing us as a nation?

Can he or she make complete sentences without reading them from a teleprompter?

Can she or he read a teleprompter?

Does the candidate’s normal vocabulary include words of more than five letters?

Can the candidate correctly pronounce nuclear?

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What do you say? “I’m sorry” seems so lame. And yet that’s what we all feel. That’s what we all say to the family of the deceased. Feelings swell like a tide and engulf us, filling every void, forcing words into hiding.

Marge was 53. Aside from being well fed like so many of us, she had no real health problems … at least none that anyone knew about. Expired in the middle of the night in her sleep. No warning. No nothing. Just died.

Not wanting to be the first to arrive at the funeral home for visitation with the family, we held back and arrived about 20 minutes after the announced start time. Pulling into the overflowing parking lot I remarked that the funeral business certainly wasn’t dead. Poor joke. Bad taste. They must have several clients here this weekend. After finally making a parking slot where there was not supposed to be one, we walked around to the front where one of the cordial funeral home mannequins directed us to a side entrance for the visitation.

On returning to bed after a middle of the night trip to the bathroom, Ben sensed that something was not right. That’s when he discovered his wife of 36 years … already gone.

Over the years I have been to more funeral home visitations than I want to think about. Never have I seen anything like this. The line waiting to get into to the large visitation room wound from the lobby to the far end of the hallway and back. Conservatively 300 to 400 people standing, shuffling uncomfortably from foot to foot, inching along. Once inside the room, there were several dozen, maybe as many as another hundred, waiting to get to the receiving line of family at the far end. And more still coming. It was going to be a long wait.

Ben and his company have been my network support customer for about 10 years. Several times I had met Marge, both in their home, and at the business. She loved to cook and entertain so she was likely to show up with enough salad, sandwiches, casseroles, and desserts to feed the entire staff — and did so frequently. On those occasions when I was lucky enough to be onsite working on a project for them, she forced me in to the break room for lunch (my arm twists easily when there is good food involved) and treated me like family. In fact, I often thought of them as a kind of extended family.

Ben grabbed and hugged me – a big bear-hug. As he pulled away he started talking. “We were married for 36 wonderful years. I have so many memories – 36 years of wonderful memories. That’s all that’s left now, that and my three great kids here with me. But that’s enough to get me through … 36 years…36…” His voice trailed off with a telltale sign of fatigue. After a sincere “I’m sorry” and “Anything I can do for you, just ask”, I moved along to offer condolences to the three young adults who found themselves suddenly mother-less.

Marge’s passing was within a couple of days of two other tragic young deaths. Dana Reeve, surviving spouse of Christopher Reeve, succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 44. The nation and world had witnessed her perseverance and bravery in caring for her very own personal Superman during the years he fought the crippling paralysis resulting from a tragic accident. Then there was Kirby Puckett, much loved former Minnesota Twins baseball player and Hall of Famer, lost at 45 to a stroke. The barrel shaped Puckett wore a permanent smile, was perennially jovial, and always had a sincere kind word for others. In a sports world tarnished by greed, drugs, and uncivil behavior, Kirby was a shining role model to be admired.

Death at a young age always gets our attention and sympathy and begs an unanswerable “Why?” Is death any less tragic, does it deserve less attention, if it happens at 70 or 80 or even 90? What is it about loss of life before one is finished with living that shakes us so? What is the right age to die? Many of us think of dying as a part of living — the inevitable end of life — and some of us do not face it with the crippling fear that grips others. Some view it as a passing from one life, one form of existence, to another. Others are quite certain that death is the end of existence. Watching elders with horribly debilitating, incurable ailments, as their families struggle to survive emotionally and financially, is every bit as heart rending as seeing them deal with the shock of sudden death of a young loved one.

These questions have been pondered and debated since we stood upright, gazed at the stars, and started thinking about life, about what it all means. Obviously, I have no answers. I do have opinions. I do have preferences as to my eventual fate. Bottom line, I want to live until I die, then pass quickly. Like my Dad did. And whether that be tonight or 30 years from now, for me, a quick exit is far preferable to a slow, lingering, agonizing death.

Rest in peace, all who pass this way, whether with us for an instant or a long lifetime.

What do you think? How do you feel?

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In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
— John Adams, in the movie 1776

The script was penned without knowledge of the likes of George W. Bush, else there would have been a job and career path listed for “…one useless man…”

Footnotes:
(1) To readers who disagree: Don’t take it personally. You had your field day with Clinton. And we will make sure you have another target for criticism after the next presidential election — provided our country lasts that long and those elections are actually conducted — fairly, this time, please, with no selection being made by Bush’s hand-picked Supreme Court.

(2) To readers who agree: Get your digs in now while you still can. If this out of control Bush abortion administration is allowed to continue feeding our Constitution into the Oval Office shredder, the time will soon come when we are not allowed to speak our minds freely except in support of His Far-Right Reverend Excellency, Commander-in-Chief of the United Christian States of America.

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• BUMPER STICKER: The world is run by those who show up.
• There is now a tanning spa on every corner. Who uses them?
• Ditto nail salons.
• Hang up and drive lest you kill somebody!
• With the FREE Nashville City Paper everyday, the FREE weekly Nashville Scene, and a few other FREE local rags, why do people still pay for The Tennessean?
• Q: How do you write the number zero in Roman numerals?
  A: You can’t. The Roman numbering system had no symbol for zero.
• Spell Check Needed: Billboards around Nashville advertising the upcoming
  New Age Expo and Wholistic Fair

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UPI reports that of people who work at home, 12 percent of males and 7 percent of females work naked. They must be the ones who do not have cats climbing on them (sharp claws — OUCH!), and do not have leather or vinyl covered chairs (brrrrr). Geez, have to remember the webcan is on! Be careful around the electric stapler and the shredder, guys…

A fully clad thanks to CG Hill over at dustbury.com who has not been seen naked at his place of employment since such records have been kept.

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To many kids growing up in the 1950s, Hostess Twinkies were a staple of the daily diet. I was more addicted to the Hostess Cup Cakes — the chocolate ones with chocolate icing, white squiggles on top, and creme filling, but I also ate my share of Twinkies. As a kid. Never as an adult. As with most pre-packaged snack desserts, the yellow sponge cake with creme filling, while tasty, presents a large load of empty calories. The original banana filling was replaced by vanilla creme filling due to the banana shortage during World War II.

According to the Hostess company website and other sources, Twinkies originated in 1930 in Chicago, with the Continental Baking Company. 75 years later, kids still love them as a snack, but they have also developed a cult following by the calorie unconscious among us. The Wikipedia entry has many interesting factoids, including this: “Twinkies are oblong in shape, approximately 4″ x 1″ (10 cm x 2.5 cm), and usually sold in packages of two. They have a shelf life of 25 days. Various urban legends have stated that Twinkies have shelf lives anywhere from several years up to one century in duration, but there is no evidence to support this.”

Over 500 million of these treats are sold each year. That’s a lot of sponge cake! Hmmm … I wonder if our friends in the UK, Ireland, Europe, Australia, even Canada, have access to Twinkies … or is this purely an American addiction?

Lest you thought I was just making up something absurd with the title, here is the recipe for Hostess Twinkies Sushi.

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There are three religious truths:
1. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
2. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith.
3. Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or at Hooters.
— George Carlin

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