Smile for the camera!

By Joseph Walther

 

A lot has happened since posting last week’s column. Such is the case whenever I’ve announced a topic for the following week. You readers will recall that I told you that this week’s topic would be SEX. Well, by God, sex it will be! However, I cannot ignore two troublesome items that I encountered since posting last week. So, I’m going to try and infuse sex into these two additional, but seemingly unrelated, items.

 

            First off, prior to posting last week’s column, I had received an email from a loyal reader that contained a newspaper article about male sexual addiction. The gist of the article was that many males—mostly celebrities with seemingly endless strings of sexual trysts—were admitting to being addicted to sex. My reader’s comment was (I’m paraphrasing here.) that women who exhibit strong sexual appetites are called whores, but when men do it, it’s a disease.

 

            Then, within a matter of a few hours after posting last week’s column, another loyal reader asked me, via email, if I meant to say “public sector” instead of “pubic sector” in referring to business. She was referring to the last sentence of the opening paragraph, “He spoke of several problems, but the gist of it all was his conviction that the “pubic” sector is bad and the “private” sector is good.”

 

            Then to top the week off, last Thursday night I overhead this conversation between a potential customer and a sales clerk at the digital camera display of a major discount store.

 

Customer: Do you carry the Olympus Stylus 740BK?

Clerk: Yes, we do. Here it is right here.

Customer: Is this a really good camera? I want to use it to take pictures at my son’s wedding.

Clerk: This here camera will be great for a wedding. You can’t go wrong.

Customer: My friend told me that 7.1 megapixels is important. But what’s the difference between a 5.6X digital zoom and a 5X optical zoom?

Clerk: Actually, sir, this here camera has 7.4 megapixels. As far as zoom numbers go, it’s the TOTAL zoom that counts and this baby has a whopping 28X!

 

            You’re probably wondering what all of this technical mumbo jumbo has to do with sex. It will become obvious, at least to the male readers, shortly.

 

            As I explained to the sender of the first email above, no one I know refers to women who demonstrate strong sexual appetites as whores. Horny, yes. Slut, yes. Nymphomaniac, sometimes. If, regardless of the assigned title, such a woman decides to charge her partners, THEN she’s a whore—referred to in proper circles as a prostitute.

 

            Most people, meaning men, define the term “prostitute” synonymously with the terms, “hooker” and “call girl”; although “experts (meaning the police), tell me that there is a distinct difference. “Call girls”, say several members of the local vice squad, “do not have bumps on their heads caused by steering wheels.”

 

            Where I’m concerned, I wouldn’t know about this, but personally, I have no malice towards call girls. Live and let live, I always say. I know. “Sex without love is nothing more than an empty experience,” you’re thinking. You are correct, but as empty experiences go, sex has to rank in the top two. Give me a few months and I may be able to think of the other one. “But, Joe,” you counter, “money can’t buy real love.” Again, you may be right in the long run. However, in the short run—extremely critical when dealing with call girls—it’s possible to buy some awfully good fake love.

 

            Regardless of whether we find “sexual addiction” plausible, a good, high quality digital camera with lots of pixels and zoom may raise our exploits to unheard of heights of sexual joy, not to mention, the potential for very lucrative levels of blackmail. Um, men, be careful with the latter item, though, unless you’re not concerned with the likelihood of sharing your personal space with a cellmate nicknamed Ramrod, if you get me drift.

 

            Meanwhile, going back to our potential camera customer, I felt obliged to explain to him that the clerk was a tad off the mark in the technical points of his sales pitch. Megapixel ratings, optical zoom, and digital zoom are distinct features found in all digital cameras. While each relates to a camera’s quality, they play different roles; the least important of which is digital zoom, along with any reference to total zoom.

 

            Megalpixel refers to image resolution (quality). The higher the number of megapixels, the greater the image’s resolution and output quality. A 7.1 MP image takes up a lot of digital image storage space on both the camera and a computer. However, it becomes absolutely critical only when printing the image. If you’re going to print a picture of your son and his new bride taken with a 2 to 3-megapixel camera, image quality will suffer if you print it on paper stock larger than 4 X 6 inches. Megapixel ratings of 4 or higher overcome this. Using a 7.1-megapixel camera, you can produce high quality prints in sizes as high as 11 X 17 inches.

 

            Oh, before I forget, the clerks reference to “7.4” megapixels needs some clarification, also. The camera’s specifications refer to 7.4 MP as a “gross” rating. While there is a technical tie-in to digital zoom, it means nothing in the practical sense relative to print quality. Think of it this way. You earn a “gross” salary. Other than the fact that the more you gross, the higher your net, it’s meaningless. Just as you can only spend what you net, your print quality is only as good as the net (7.1MP in this case) rating of a camera.

 

            Digital zoom is equally meaningless when it comes to printed image quality or the ability to bring a target image closer than its actual physical distance. Digital zoom is an internal function of the camera itself. It’s how a camera eliminates the need to reframe an image internally. Since you can accomplish this using a computer and image editing software, do not fret over a camera’s digital zoom.

 

            OPTICAL zoom is, on the other hand, CRITICAL. Most women, reading a camera’s operating manual, will understand the significance of optical zoom and the role it plays in picture taking. Many (meaning most) men, however, need a simplified explanation that is also meaningful on their respective levels of critical thinking. So, before you women send me hate mail expressing your disgust, please remember that I’m just trying to be helpful here.

 

            Think of optical zoom as the camera’s ability to bring an image closer than it actually is. Men, this means that if you are taking a picture of someone who is 100-yards away, the camera can make HER appear much closer. Optical zoom can be anywhere from ZERO to 10X, pronounced as ten-by. Also, think of the optical zoom number as a fraction, a reciprocal as it were. Instead of thinking in terms of 3, 5, or 10 closer, consider the numbers as fractions, as the image being only 1/3, 1/5, and 1/10 as far away. Let me explain in plainer terms.

 

            Men, you are standing on the goal line of a football field. Standing on the opposite goal line—100-yards away—is a female streaker. Now, you can barely make her out, but others are yelling that she is completely naked. As a man, you are completely unable to ignore this. You aim your digital camera to snap her picture.

 

            If your camera has NO optical zoom, you’re out of luck. All you can see, if you are lucky, is a small image standing on the other goal line. You probably can’t even make out the fact that she’s naked, let alone capture anything “worth while.” If your camera has a 3X optical zoom, you can see a lot more. If you optically zoom to the full 3X capability, you can see the woman as though she were standing only 33.3 yards away. If you have normal male eye sight, as you look at her through the camera’s lens, you’ll become dumbfounded and mumble something like, “Those are NICE!”

 

            If you have a camera with a 5X optical zoom, she now appears only 20-yards away. Not only can you see “those”, you’d be able to see other interesting features, were it not for some mysterious force that prevents most men—at least most that I know—from moving the camera downward, away from “those.” If your camera has a 10X optical zoom, she appears only TEN yards away. You can’t miss anything from this distance. Not even that mysterious force can prevent you from looking at her entire naked body! “Thank God for…I mean damn, optical zoom is SO important,” you say to yourself.

 

            I hope this clears things up for the reader who brought the “pubic/public” distinction to my attention. Also, I hope all of you readers can now see how intricately entwined sexual addiction, the pubic sector, and digital cameras are. Is it any wonder how little attention the “private” sector receives? Let me reiterate quickly, one more time.

 

            At zero optical zoom, both the “private” sector and the “pubic” sector look the same. It’s virtually impossible to tell if one is “better” than the other is. At a 3X optical zoom, we begin to see a little differentiation between the “private” sector (Well, normally it’s private.) and the “pubic” sector. At a 5X optical zoom, we can clearly see the “pubic” sector, provided that we’re able to overcome that mysterious force and move the camera downward. At a 10X optical zoom, you can’t miss anything. The “pubic” sector takes on new meaning. Ten-by optical zoom provides us with an indisputable ability to determine, FINALLY, if the “private” sector is, in fact, ALWAYS arbitrarily better than the “pubic” sector. Of course, women have always known that, either way, it’s no big deal.

 

See you next week.

 

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.

Hey Hamster! Get back on that wheel, now!

by Joseph Walther

“Private sector businesses have to make a profit. They do not have the luxury of indulging in bureaucratic nonsense the way that the public sector does. In fact, government agencies are about self-preservation, not helping people. This is why they are all so ineffective.” Yes, this is what the man said. We all—me and about seven others—heard him say it last Thursday afternoon. He spoke of several problems, but the gist of it all was his conviction that the “pubic” sector is bad and the “private” sector is good.

 

            The others seemed comfortable with this speaker. I had no idea who he was, and still don’t. I just happened to walk into one of those lounging/reading areas at Barnes and Noble Booksellers. The group seemed so intense. I had to stop a few minutes to listen. It only took about 30-seconds for me to realize that he was using a large brush and very broad strokes attempting to paint an incredibly detailed portrait.

 

            He continued, “For example, the du Pont Company would be out of business in a matter of months if it operated the way the public school system does.” The other seven listeners nodded with enraptured agreement. Just as his eyes met mine, I let him see a slight frown on my face and nodded back and forth in gentle disagreement. “You disagree with this statement, sir?” he asked. “I don’t disagree with your statement. However, I think the comparison sucks. You’re comparing apples to oranges,” I finished.

 

            I explained that his earlier statement about private sector businesses confused me. The du Pont Company, for example, is publicly traded. It’s only private in the sense that it’s not a government entity. On the other hand, Sam’s Sandwich Shop & Brain Surgery Emporium, although not traded publicly, is just as private and for the same reason. Both must return a profit or else! In the former case, the stockholders will get mad as hell and start firing people. In the latter case, Sam will go bankrupt and the customers will have to find somewhere else to enjoy a sandwich while awaiting brain surgery.

 

            The public school system is a government entity. We created it to provide a public good at a minimum cost to voters. We don’t expect a profit. While I think that it fails to meet some of its goals, it’s not a complete failure. If your children are average or above, they receive just as good an education as they would at a private school and at a price that a large segment of our population can easily afford. Granted, in the private school system, there are fewer disciplinary problems and, in the case of the religious denominational schools, more reinforcement of parents’ religious tenets.

 

            On the other hand, children with average or above academic ability pose far fewer disciplinary problems, probably on the same par as the average private school. Their parents are involved in their education and participate in parent/school activities. Additionally, these children have competent, dedicated teachers. There is not a problem here. Politicians, along with the clueless, should stop trying to solve one.

 

            At the lower end of the spectrum, however, there is a problem. And, lack of discipline is a major part of it. The politicians need to solve this problem, but they won’t. This would involve a direct confrontation with a strong public school teachers’ union, along with large segments of the clueless who will not vote for them, otherwise. Oh, and let us not forget the equally clueless parents who use public schools as convenient baby sitting agencies.

 

            I guess that my main point is the fact that bureaucratic nonsense exists in all aspects of life. It is present in the “private” sector as well as the “public” sector. I’ll use my hamsters-on-the-wheel analogy to explain what I mean.

 

            In the “private” sector, management’s job is to make sure that the wheel is the proper size and that the hamsters that turn the wheel are healthy and happy enough to operate the wheel in the best possible way. Private sector managers must also convince the hamsters that operate the wheel that they, with diligent effort and dedication, may one day succeed in getting OFF the wheel to direct the operation OF the wheel. And, these managers must accomplish all of this within a realm of profit margins sufficient to keep the wheel in business and, if applicable, keeping the stockholders from becoming mad!

 

            This applies to ALL “private” sector endeavors, whether they sell hamburgers, treat sick people, or educate our young people. It applies whether the endeavor is large, medium or small. In other words, in the “private” sector, profit is the underlying motivation and there is ALWAYS direct accountability. Failure always results in either some hamsters involuntarily leaving the wheel, the firing of some former hamsters, or a combination of both of these.

 

            But, as long as the managers accomplish the profit goals, they may (and most certainly do) engage in the same bureaucratic idiosyncrasies as their “public” sector counter parts. I have yet to find a private sector manager who has turned down a corner office, keys to the executive bathrooms, or any of the other perks associated with promotion from the ranks of former hamsters!

 

            In the “public” sector—meaning government agencies—profit is not a motivating force. In fact, law prohibits it. In addition, direct accountability is nonexistent. The system makes sure of this. The size of the wheel matters infinitely more that its efficiency. The bigger the wheel, the more hamsters it will take to turn it. The actual happiness and health of the hamsters are not as important in the “public” sector. All that’s required is to convince the hamsters that they’re doing noble work and successfully disguise their plights. It’s the old “This place sucks but the benefits and pension are fabulous” mindset.

 

            This mindset in the “public” sector is pervasive. It is immaterial whether we speak of the local government sponsored group to study recycling, the Department of Homeland Security, or the Congress of the United States. BIG is preferred because it is safe from direct accountability.

 

            “Public” sector managers and politicians know something else, too. They know that WE, the voters, have long forgotten that WE hold stockholder powers. They also know that WE, the stockholders, bitch day and night about all of the “public” sector nonsense. But, WE, the stockholders, don’t really mean it, though. How do they know this?

 

            We prove it with 6-15 percent turnouts during primary elections. We prove it further with between 21-28 percent turnouts for mid-term elections. We prove it even further with consistently sub-fifty percent turnouts for presidential elections. We prove it ultimately by permitting our news outlets, both print and electronic, to sell their goods by consistently appealing to our growing number of lowest common denominators.

 

            We’re all hamsters, folks, and it’s our collective leg power that keeps the wheel turning. The wheel is getting bigger and bigger and tougher and tougher to turn. Unless we, the hamsters, do something about it, it’s going to become worse to the point that we’ll all collapse from exhaustion and the wheel will stop. We’re in desperate need for people to coordinate our efforts at turning the wheel. Right now, unfortunately, if we identified all of the talent in the Whitehouse and both Houses of Congress combined and applied it directly to our collective hips as added weight, we’d not gain a single ounce.

 

            Have a safe and happy week. Next week, however, I’m going to discuss s-e-x. I have always tried not to announce my topic in advance because it’s so restrictive in the event that something more interesting comes up in the interim. I’m only doing it this week out of consideration for all of the tight-assed moral absolutists who love to send me email condemning me to eternal hell. So if you’re one of those tight asses, you might want to read your bible instead.

 

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.

Hey, this ain't the right answer!

 

By Joe Walther

 

My cell phone rang. It was 4 PM on Friday afternoon. “I just paid fifty bucks for a new calculator and it doesn’t work,” she said. “Is there any chance of you taking a look at it before I take it back and raise hell?” I told her that I was headed to Borders Book Store in Stanton, but I’d be…. “Great,” she interrupted, “I’ll meet you there.” The line went dead.

 

            Melissa; that’s who called; teaches junior high—7^th and 8^th grades—in one of the school districts in New Castle County, Delaware. I met her about 15-years ago at a Microsoft Excel workshop. I was conducting and she was one of the most attentive participants I’ve ever had. We’ve been friends ever since. Incredible intelligence aside, she’s a bit impulsive and high-strung, attributes that are handsomely offset by an obvious willingness to give her last dime to a cause if she believes in it.

 

            Twenty minutes later, the two of us were sitting at one of the tables in the bookstore coffee shop; I mean café. At the prices they charge, I think the law requires them to call it a café. Anyway, she handed me the calculator and the accompanying 110-page manual.

 

            I found myself holding a genuine Texas Instruments BA II Plus™. It is one of the best financial calculators on the market. While it does all of the little stuff (add, subtract, multiply, and divide) and some of the routine scientific stuff such as squares, roots, logs, sine, cosine, reciprocals, and a few others, it’s not, strictly speaking, a full-scale scientific calculator. Its strong suit, however, is heavyweight financial calculations.

 

            Since 7^th graders have no real need to know this stuff, at least at this sophisticated level, I wanted to know why she chose a financial calculator. She explained that, for the price, this one seemed like a “kill two birds for the price of one” deal. She thought that she’d be able to do the general arithmetic applications for her students and learn the financial functions for herself. Please note! Melissa does not permit her students to use calculators in her math class. She, however, uses one in grading their assignments.

 

            Ok, this seemed soundly logical, but I wanted to know how she knew that the calculator didn’t work. “I tried one of the problems in our 7^th grade math workbook; I could not get the answer in the back of the book.” Here’s the problem she had entered: 20.513+10.375x2.434. She showed me her work. The calculator answer was 75.181. The textbook’s answer was 45.766. The textbook answer is the correct one, of course.

 

            Most financial calculators—I’ve not found one that does not— employ the Chain system (Chn) for string operations. In other words, the calculator solves strings in the order that the user enters them. In the problem above, the calculator adds 20.513 to 10.375 and then multiplies the sum by 2.434. It’s WRONG and this kind of nonsense is the leading cause of heart attacks in people like me! Well, ok, wild sex orgies are the leading cause, but this is a close second, though!

 

            Oh, and before I forget, if the sex is good, I do not consider a fatal heart attack to be an unreasonable price for me to pay. This assumes, of course, that it occurs at the PROPER time, if you get my drift.

 

            Now, back to the subject at hand. A scientific calculator uses the Algebraic Operating System (AOS). It multiplies 10.375 by 2.434 because multiplication comes before addition and subtraction, and then adds 20.513. This is the CORRECT way to do it. It has always been the correct way to do it because some dude (or maybe a dudette) back in the BC era, determined that there is an absolute mathematical operations hierarchy. If you are unfamiliar with it, I question how you slipped past the 7^th grade.

 

            In fairness to Texas Instruments, financial calculators use Chn for string calculations because financial folks wanted it that way. In the early days before calculators, people had to administer the math hierarchy manually by inserting parentheses to change it. When calculators became dominate, the manufacturers built Chn into the operating systems because the users wanted to continue manually changing the hierarchy.

 

            Melissa didn’t read the first chapter of the 110-page manual. This one explains how the calculator works. But, even if she HAD read it, Texas Instruments does not take the space to explain why financial calculators use Chn. While the manual explains that a user can change from Chn to AOS, it isn’t very explicit. Nor does it explain in any way that the user MUST use parentheses to arrive at a correct answer while in the Chn mode.

 

            I called Texas Instruments and spoke to one of the marketing people there. They understood the nature of my call and acknowledged the validity of my point. They told me that they’d look into the matter. However, it seemed to me that the main thrust of their response was trying to reassure me of their continued commitment to make the operation of their products “intuitively” obvious.

 

            I hate the term, “intuitively obvious.” Not only is it misused, it’s overused to a point of nausea. It is especially handy for making potential opponents—especially those who are conceptually unfamiliar with an idea—feel stupid. I think that we, as a matter of social norm, should electrocute anyone who uses the term. Incidentally, this also applies to all of those who use the terms “fair” and “taxes” in the same sentence. Just as there is no such thing as a universally “fair” tax, nothing is “intuitively obvious” to everyone, not even to the self-professed geniuses of the world. True geniuses never use the term!

 

            To a lucky small child, all of the presents under the Christmas tree makes Santa Claus’s trip from the North Pole “intuitively obvious.” Not so, for the poorest children among us. To an Astrophysicist, the exponent, 1/r², means that if people move twice the distance from the center of the earth, they’ll weigh only a quarter as much as their normal weight. Move ten times the distance and they’ll weigh only one hundredth as much. Not so to your typical politician. Their typical response is, “Huh?”

 

            Melissa is happy with her purchase now that she understands the concept behind Texas Instrument’s use of Chn in its financial calculators and that she can automatically avoid math errors by changing the mode to AOS. At least it seemed “intuitively obvious” to me that she was happy. However, when I told her that she could have purchased the same calculator from Target for half the price she paid at Office Depot, everyone in the Border’s coffee shop, I mean “café”, witnessed her vocal unhappiness.

 

            Why, it was “intuitively obvious” to everyone there, except a State Representative seated next to us. His expression was one of “HUH!” His cluelessness was ‘intuitively obvious” to all us! Or was it? He seemed so preoccupied with a sheet of paper he was holding up. I think it was his son’s semester’s textbook bill!

 

See you next week.

 

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.

Please, Mr. Custer, I don't wanna go.

By Joe Walther

 

It was not a typical Friday night at the Concord Mall located at the northern edge of Delaware just a stone’s throw from the Pennsylvania state line. About forty shoppers of varying ages and backgrounds had gathered at the café tables adjacent to the Sbarro Bistro and an array of other dining outlets. They sipped their various beverages and ate an assortment of foods like any other Friday night. What made this one different, however, was the topic of discussion: George Bush and the Iraqi war. I sat down and listened for close to an hour. The consensus was that George Bush has blown it in Iraq. My goodness, how things have changed since September 11, 2001.

 

            Had this conversation taken place on September 12, 2001, these people would have been ripping Bush bashers’ jugulars out. The same would have held on September 11, 2002 and 2003. The man still had a sizeable cadre of supporters in 2004. What’s happened? Also, note that none of these folks criticized Bush’s decision to go into Iraq. I don’t, either. I would not have done it at the time he did it, but once done, I had no criticism of it. However, his execution of the war has been another story altogether. Here’s what I think.

 

            On 9/11 in 2001, a group of 19 hijackers scored a stunning national gut-punch by destroying the World Trade Center buildings and attacking our Pentagon. I’m not going to rehash it here. If you want to see the devastation by the numbers, click here. For some insight into the total collateral impact on New York City, alone, click here. As bad as its impact was on our national pride and sensitivities, it has become worse over the past 5-years.

 

            Osama bin Laden’s motivation has always been to rally all of Islam against the infidels of the West. He put the United States on formal notice of his intent to bring jihad to us by his 1998 bombing of two of our embassies in East Africa. He sent another message of his intentions when he ordered the suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. These attacks failed to rally Islam to his cause and recruiting jihadists remained as difficult as ever. Nevertheless, the 9/11 attacks would begin to change all of this.

 

            The entire world was as stunned as we were over the 9/11 attacks. When Mr. Bush gathered the Cavalry and charged into Afghanistan in hot pursuit, the world community rallied behind us. Our response was righteous and expected. Even though we didn’t catch the gang leader, we captured or killed several gang members and scattered the remnants of al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan to the winds. In the process we were able to replace the Taliban sheriff with one more amenable to our goals, thus depriving the al-Qaeda gang of a safe haven for recruiting and training more members.

 

            It seemed that, once again, Osama’s tactics failed to net the desired result of rallying all of Islam against the Western Infidels. Oh, and let us not forget about the Jews. Osama’s not too crazy about them, either.

 

(Please Mr. Custer, I don’t wanna go.)

 

            We began to feel better about ourselves. The Afghanis began to feel better about themselves, especially the females. We were riding high. They were riding high. We could have continued the pursuit. We could have attempted to help the Afghanis stem the opium trade and lessen the warlord plague in that country. Yes, we could have done these things, but we didn’t. In fact, the news outlets rarely mention Afghanistan now. Instead, George split his cavalry and led another charge, this time into Iraq. All of that great Afghanistan press now seems neutralized by the blunders in Iraq.

 

(Hey, Mr. Custer, please don’t make me go.)

 

            Donald Rumsfeld decided to disband the Iraqi Army and refused to commit an adequate number of troops to the initial invasion. He’s committed other blunders as well. Declaring the man incompetent is an understatement. However, the Sunni extremists hatred of the Shias has compounded the blunders. Having the Shias finally begin to fight back has the country on the precipice of a civil war. We’re now in the middle of it.

 

(I had a dream last night about the comin’ fight.)

 

            Regardless of what Bush claims, things are not going well in Iraq. Not being able to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda conclusively, failing to find any credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and the Bush folks’, including Tony Blair, refusal to utter so much as an “oops”, has turned world opinion against us.

 

(Somebody yelled “attack!”)

 

            George Bush’s knack for confusing things has handed Osama bin Laden all of the ammunition he needs to accomplish his goal of turning all of Islam against the western infidel. Crippling al-Qaeda as a terrorist organization does little good if your actions embolden the underlying ideals of such an organization. Osama now has what he needs to convince the Muslim world that all of Islam is under attack by the infidel and that jihad is now a duty.

 

(What am I doing here?)

 

            I am certainly not an expert on these matters. However, I do understand that radicals on every side of an issue can’t survive without unfounded fear replacing reason. Instilling unfounded fear requires enemies. If they can’t find any real ones, they make some up. In this respect, Osama bin Laden and Karl Rove are not very different, with the exception that Osama is better at it than Karl is.

 

            I also know that the Osamas of the world are dangerous. So are the Roves. The Islamic extremists mean to kill us. Make no mistake about it and we must stop them. The entire world has a stake in destroying al-Qaeda-like groups as well as the ideology that gives them purpose. However, we need to use a higher level of mentality than George Bush has so far demonstrated in order to accomplish this.

 

            General George Armstrong Custer and George Bush have some things in common. Custer was not very bright and Bush seems intent on demonstrating to the world that he’s not quite as bright. Custer’s ego swelled out of proportion to reality because Grant promoted him to the temporary rank of Brigadier General at the age of twenty-three. This coupled with a monumental level of arrogance made him colossally stupid and careless.

 

            George Bush acquired his ego and stupidity later in life. Some people have said that he was quite the drinker for much of his earlier years. Medical experts claim that excessive alcohol consumption destroys brain cells. I don’t know if this is true in either case. However, given George’s penchant for refusing to let facts interfere with his perception of reality, I’d say that the claims are true.

 

(Please, Mr. Custer, I don’t wanna go.)

 

See you next week. And for those around my age, if you want the complete lyrics to “Please, Mr. Custer, I don’t wanna go,” click here.

 

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.