Prairie Dogs In Da House!

              ”Cynomys Dogus Prairius Americanus”
This, from Wikipedia:  Prairie dogs are named for their habitat and warning call, which sounds similar to a dog’s bark. The name was in use by at least 1774. The 1804 journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition note that in September 1804, they “discovered a Village of an animal the French Call the Prairie Dog.” Its genus, Cynomys, derives from the Greek for dog mouse.

In companies that use large numbers of cubicles in a common space, employees sometimes use the term prairie dogging to refer to the action of several people simultaneously looking over the walls of their cubicles in response to a noise or other distraction. This action is thought to resemble the startled response of a group of prairie dogs.

According to the two definitions above, most days you’ll find Prairie Dogs either on the Prairie [Duh] or within the confines of a corporation’s office ’bull pen’.  Men and women popping their heads up sporadically to see ’What’s going on?’, ‘What was that noise?’, or, ‘Holy cow, you mean they FIRED the entire Marketing Department?!?!?  Hey, I’m in the Marketing Department!”

Last night however, was all about ‘Prairie Dogging’ in the House.  The politically-correct ‘Blues’ and ‘Reds’ dutifully entered the House floor adorned with their symbolic Black and White Tucson-shooting ribbons for the President’s State of the Union Address. 

Last night I was a participant in viewing dogs of a similar sort to these latter ‘dogs’.

(I almost called them ‘Lemmings’ for purposes of this post but no one has a soft-spot in their heart for a Lemming.  Plus, the majority of Lemmings don’t know where there going – only one does.  He's normally the one who gets 'wet' first.  Unfortunately, good-decision-making is not a strong suit of the atypical ‘Lemming’.  (Well, with the exception, of course, of the one little guy with the orange inner-tube around his waist.  I like him.  I call him ‘Bob’.))

I’ll save you the sixty-four minutes of watching the President’s entire speech online and tell you everything that you need to know about the State of the Union:  Yeah, everything’s cool, we need to spend some more money and the State of the Union is ‘Strong’.

There you go, everything the President said in just over an hour in one tidy package of roughly eighteen words (excluding the ’contraction’ for everything’s meaning ‘everything is’).

We caught up so far?  Excellent!  Super groovy cool…

Oops, getting back to the dogs ‘thing’.  My post from late yesterday afternoon entitled, ”Kumbaya” discussed the ‘Powerful message communicated by Republicans and Democrats sitting together during the speech proving to Lunatics that they don’t need to shoot people over the angry rhetoric in Washington’.  This message is best summed up by Elton John’s breakthrough album, “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player”.  In case you think that I made this up (I have NEVER lied to you before, I’m NOT going to start now):

           Ta Da!!! There it is!  Haven’t lied…  Yet.

So we’ve got a room full of the ‘Best and Brightest’ Attorneys (oops, I meant ‘ Caring Politicians’) gathered sitting ‘Kumbaya’ style next to each other and something ‘odd’ happened.  (Woohoo, who saw THAT coming!?!?)

The ‘oddness’ happened organically as TYPICALLY ‘Reds’ sit with ‘Reds’ and ‘Blues’ sit with, you guessed it, ‘Blues’.  They stand, applause, and sit, in their appropriate section of the House pretty much in UNISON when they are sitting together.  Last night, however, they were ALL over the place.  I may not be the first one telling you this, but they looked LOST.  Every time the President said something which called for either an applause or boo line, members of Congress had to look around at other members to see what THEY should be doing.

Here’s an actual photo:

My Mom had an expression of, let’s see, it had something to with either doing, “Something, (this was a BAD word) or getting off the pot.”  Last night, Reds and Blues couldn’t even FIND their pot (well, not all of them, at least – I’m sure a few of them ‘lit up’ prior to entering the House floor) let alone doing something about it.

So you have the SMARTEST MEN AND WOMEN IN THE NATION looking at OTHER Members to see if they should laugh, clap, stand, boo, or perhaps, as referenced above, get off the pot.  Don’t we pay these folks to think for themselves?  Does the House of Representatives really need an APPLAUSE board (or BOO Board) like one of those idiotic daytime game shows?

          Oh, please SOMEONE tell me it’s not so.

The one thing I can tell YOU about last night’s speech, about half the members of Congress are going to need physical therapy for several months with the amount of ‘Head Twisting’ that was going on in the House.

You want a stock tip?

BUY Johnson and Johnson Stock (Symbol ‘JNJ’).

WHY?  Because they make this stuff:

Aw, come on, who added the Red TEXT above the tube?

That’s NOT funny!!!  (Well, it is, but that doesn’t make it right…)

All I know is with the amount of ’head twisting’ last night and the regularly-scheduled ’arm twisting’ that goes on in DC, JNJ’s BenGay is pretty much a LOCK as America’s growth stock for the foreseeable future.

So there you have it.  It sure was nice to sing ’Kumbaya’ together last night as we held hands with each other, watched our Nation’s representatives meet, and then longingly look to each other to see what the ‘others’ were doing to determine what 'they' should do.

Yeah, the 112th Congress ROCKS HARD!

Okay, that’s it for today, but I did want to conclude with a few photos taken at the end of the Speech last night.  I’m such a sentimental kind of guy, cow, whatever…

Barack and Michelle meet for a brief kiss following the President’s speech…


Barney Frank relaxes after a grueling day of relaxing…

A few of the President’s Czars get together to see what else they can do to make Congress irrelevant…


Lastly, accompanied by a few friends, Al Gore stages a protest outside the House against ‘something’, although he’s not entirely sure what he’s protesting yet…
But don’t worry, it’ll come to him sooner or later.

Something always comes to Al – Oscars, Nobel-Peace Prizes, graft, you know, all the things which make it good to be HIM.

Let’s be civil out there, okay?

NO PRAIRIE DOGS WERE INJURED IN THE GENERATION OF TODAY'S POST.  AND, IN CASE YOU'RE WONDERING?  BOB IS OKAY TOO.  THE LEMMINGS IN FRONT OF HIM HOWEVER, THEY AIN'T COMING BACK.