Sunday, July 22, 2007
The Bright Shining Old Man is a Middle-aged Woman
I have been hearing about some interesting videos as of late. One of these is Obama Girl about this young woman who really is attracted to Barack Obama. She is so attracted to her that she dances in a bikini in front of a picture of him. Then came Obama Girl vs Giuliani Girl in which debates and bikini cheerleading contests occur between two sides of young women, one of which is going bananas for Obama and the other going gaga after Giuliani. As if you had just about seen everything, here comes one about a young woman who has the hots for Hillary Clinton, Hott4Hill. She says that Obama is OK but doesn't have what Hillary has: ovaries. Further, she likes Hillary's tush.
Hey wait a minute. What has all this got to deal with functioning well as a President in what could be the most trying period in American history? Kathleen Parker, the columnist, thinks so. She says in her column for today, YouTube and politics: perfect storm of idiocy that we are so hooked on hotties that the barbarians could simply waltz in from next door, and in my opinion, set up a ruthless dictatorship. She uses some interesting wording in her essay, such as "perfect storm of idiocy", "videomentary", "teeniest bikiniest", "this president or that", or especially "hott", using the same misspelling as Hott4Hill does.
This all reminds me of an old Onondaga tale about the Bright Shining Old Man, which I tell in my class on the stories of the constellations in the sky. Once upon a time, a tribe of Onondagas moved into a new area, and they needed to set up camp and prepare for the winter. But the teenagers and young adults in the clan did not help their parents. Instead every day they would dance out in the woods. They had glorious fun doing this until an old man in brilliant white dress confronted them and told them that if they did not stop their dancing, something terrible would happen. They ignored his advice and continue to dance. Something terrible did happen. One day they floated off in the sky and became the Pleiades, never to be seen again on Earth.
This is an allegorical myth, and likewise so is this man. So he could appear in any of a number of guises. He could be a woman, for instance. He could be middle-aged. He could be a columnist of a paper. Could he be Kathleen Parker?
We have been warned.
Hey wait a minute. What has all this got to deal with functioning well as a President in what could be the most trying period in American history? Kathleen Parker, the columnist, thinks so. She says in her column for today, YouTube and politics: perfect storm of idiocy that we are so hooked on hotties that the barbarians could simply waltz in from next door, and in my opinion, set up a ruthless dictatorship. She uses some interesting wording in her essay, such as "perfect storm of idiocy", "videomentary", "teeniest bikiniest", "this president or that", or especially "hott", using the same misspelling as Hott4Hill does.
This all reminds me of an old Onondaga tale about the Bright Shining Old Man, which I tell in my class on the stories of the constellations in the sky. Once upon a time, a tribe of Onondagas moved into a new area, and they needed to set up camp and prepare for the winter. But the teenagers and young adults in the clan did not help their parents. Instead every day they would dance out in the woods. They had glorious fun doing this until an old man in brilliant white dress confronted them and told them that if they did not stop their dancing, something terrible would happen. They ignored his advice and continue to dance. Something terrible did happen. One day they floated off in the sky and became the Pleiades, never to be seen again on Earth.
This is an allegorical myth, and likewise so is this man. So he could appear in any of a number of guises. He could be a woman, for instance. He could be middle-aged. He could be a columnist of a paper. Could he be Kathleen Parker?
We have been warned.
