July 2007: Hot Fun In The Summertime

Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant returns from camp—on crutches, after spraining an ankle in an overzealous volleyball move. Due to thinking, "the higher the leap, the closer to God"...?One year after Sonny Jr's wedding, the couple and kid still live in the basement, chez Jesus' BAA. Sonny III is six or seven months old, and called "S3" by his parents. Is that supposed to sound like a truck model? Or, maybe it's to emulate the family heroes: the dynasty where father and spawn refer to each other as "41" and "43."

Sonny, Jr. just lost the job he'd gotten recently. He had been sick for a day, then in a vehicle accident and out a second day. Which exceeded his "one absence per first six months of employment"...

Jesus' BAA relates this without comment. And she may very well think it's just dandy—that God has directed the company to make the rules, and the employees to obey.

In any case, Sonny is unemployed. The fights over money have begun... and Elly May threatens that, if Sonny doesn't start earning some pronto, she will join the army.

This is about all these people have in their repertoire.

Dr. G. Zuss may not yet have gained control over employee work station décor, but this month he compensates with an art-shopping spree for the executive suite and surrounding areas. The budget for this includes the services of—an Art Consultant. Who guides Dr. G. Zuss in finding art both to his liking and suitable for "Our Department's Brand."

Because I see the receipts, I know a bundle has been spent on a number of rooms and other spaces. Including the hallway outside the executive suite: a space so narrow it's impossible to look at what's on the walls without walking either into people passing or the art itself.

And "Our Brand" is...what? Most departments hang art that has something to do with their field—or else with the University in general, or the sports teams.

Our CEO mainly wanted to coordinate art to his new wall colors. And he likes mildly abstract pictures—so we now have architectural detail photos of buildings in anonymous locations, shot in extreme close-up and "creative" angles.

Jesus' BAA must have been especially shocked that her boss likes abstraction.

Cruella, on the other hand, barges into the room, oohing and ahhing to Dr. G. Zuss, and announcing, "your taste is just like mine!"

Dr.G. Zuss gets the mildly pained look that comes over him when the underlings speak without having been spoken to. He makes no reply, and Cruella's gambit doesn't seem so effective. But for her, currying favor with authority is a life-long campaign, not to be slowed by a momentary setback.

There's another notable change in the surroundings.

For years, there's been an unmarked room outside the executive suite. It would appear to a storage room, but the unlocked door periodically swings open to reveal a sink and toilet stall.

These are used only by Dr. G. Zuss and Mr. Ghengis. There is an unstated rule that the toilet is off-limits to everyone else—even the most senior male faculty and division chiefs pass it by, to use the men's room farther down the hall.

As the redecoration spree winds down, I walk in one morning to find new wall signs outside the rooms. The room that was previously private, but discreetly so, is now marked, "Executive Washroom." Which is repeated in Braille—presumably, one can't be too careful about blind people entering places above their station.

I report this to Clever Sister, as well as to friends and relations in other departments. In total, the sample represents many decades of experience throughout the University. And the amazement over this piece of chutzpah is unanimous.

The University is a hierarchy, but it's also a public institution, and distinctions are not usually flaunted this much; not so publicly, in a hallway with a lot of traffic. The upper reaches may well have executives-only facilities, but I've never been around a department that's announced it so blatantly. Nor has anyone I know.


Dateline: July 4, 2007—

American citizens will now be compelled to allow British soldiers to live in their homes, thanks to a new signing statement from President Bush.

By negating the Third Amendment, the new order completes the abrogation of the entire United States Bill of Rights. High-level White House sources have indicated that this was Bush's sole purpose in issuing the statement.

Actually, from a "prediction" by Bob Harris, a year ago. Not really so over the top, the joke being based on too much painful truth—

The signing statement — Bush's once-controversial practice of amending and interpreting laws as he signs them, arrogating to himself the traditional roles of both the Congress and Supreme Court — was the 1,745th of Bush's presidency. Previous signing statements have negated the prohibition of torture, eliminated oversight of Bush's use of the Patriot Act, and declared "Englesh" the official language of the United States.

Some constitutional scholars claim that Bush's total number of signing statements is actually 1,744, and that statement number 1,309 was, in fact, an uncompleted seven-letter game of Hangman.

As for our moronic political campaign season, driftglass writes of the Sunday morning pundit show commentary:

Hoss race toutin'.

Feh.

If I want to see overpaid men running in meaningless circles, NASCAR is only a click away...

Among the paragons already in office is David "Gays Threaten Marriage" Vitter. Elected to the House from Louisiana in a 1999 special election—after an adultery scandal led to Bob Livingston's resignation.

During his 2004 campaign for Senate, Mary Jacoby's Salon profile described Vitter's political rise, despite "rumors involving a prostitute and a secret alliance with neo-Nazi David Duke"—

He presents himself as a morally righteous, clean-cut family man, and his wife and three young children have become virtual campaign props. The Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar is also extremely intelligent, observers say, and runs perhaps the most effective political ads in the state. But there are hints of a dark side: allegations of an affair with a prostitute and a lawsuit claiming he lost his temper and physically charged at a woman at a town hall meeting.

And as his political career got underway—

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 whether she could forgive her husband if she learned he'd had an extramarital affair, as Hillary Clinton and Bob Livingston's wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune: "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

But Republicans are nothing if not forgiving.

Even after Vitter is publicly identified as a "D.C. Madam" client, Mrs. Lorena Bobbitt Vitter Stands By Her Man.

And even after becoming known as "Diaper Dave," his Republican colleagues gave him a standing ovation on his return to the Senate. An event commemorated for posterity by water tiger.