One man’s problem is another’s column
As a columnist, I thrive on the dumb things that people do and say.
On slow weeks, I’m forced to look at the inappropriate things I think and say, but during busy weeks, it’s hard to pick just one topic.
This week has been a goldmine, and I’m not talking about my roommates catching my dancing in the kitchen to ABBA.
For starters, Vice President Cheney, while hunting quail on a Texas ranch, shot his 78-year-old friend Harry Whittington.
I initially had a hard time imagining what happened, but ranch owner Katharine Armstrong has given us a pretty good picture, reporting to the media that the orange-vested Whittington “got peppered pretty good.”
Everything is bigger in Texas, and I suppose the quail are no exception.
In fact, I typed “Texas Quail” into Google and, no joke, they look just like retired Republican lawyers.
The kicker, of course, is how evolution has blessed them with plumage that looks strangely like an orange hunting vest.
The White House didn’t see the incident as being important enough to report because, according to Armstrong, “It didn’t get his eyes or anything like that.”
I think I speak for us all when I say thank heavens that Vice President Cheney missed Whittington’s eyes and instead shot something so inconsequential as his chest, arms and neck.
And to Dick Cheney I have a few things to say: First, good luck in finding a new hunting buddy. Second, you may not be able to pass a hunter’s safety course, but I still trust you with the fate of American troops in Iraq. And lastly, I know I said I was against the wiretaps, but if this is the alternative, you’re more than welcome to join my phone conversations.
Moving to something a little closer to home, I have been amazed by the violent reaction on both sides of the ideological fence to the recent Persian Peacock ad in the Statesman.
I wouldn’t mention it, but I haven’t received any hate mail in a few weeks and am starting to feel the loss.
I’ll admit that I didn’t give the ad much thought when I first saw it, but after repeated viewings,
I have realized that the whole thing actually is a little titillating. I cannot, however, say with any degree of certainty how much of my feeling is due to the ad and how much of it comes from my not having kissed a girl since Sept. 17 of 2001.
But I do have to support the Statesman’s running the ad if for no other reason than its appearing next to my Friday column last week made me realize just how un-sexy my writing is.
So whether you support or abhor the Persian Peacock and the American history of cartoon sensuality, I implore you to lay down your arms and rally around a new, sexier “Not Quite Nietzsche.”
And finally, Saddam Hussein admitted this week that he and seven of his co-defendants have started a hunger strike to protest their treatment in court.
Hussein’s former intelligence chief Ibrahim Barzan took matters a step further and has begun wearing nothing but his underwear in court.
While a hunger strike certainly couldn’t hurt, I don’t think that Saddam or Barzan understand the gravity of their situation. A slimmer Hussein could easily be mistaken for a fowl, and we know where that lands you with the current administration.
And with Barzan parading around in his racy undies, the two aren’t going to be able to look to Utah State students for any help, at least not before two weeks of letters to the editor.
Well, that’s all for this week. Next time I’ll tackle that ABBA thing.
Zach Pendleton is a junior in English, devoted ABBA fan and a columnist for the Utah Statesman.
Comments and quesions can be sent to
zpendleton@cc.usu.edu