Rose Richard:Conjunction junction, what’s your function?

I haven’t been paying attention to politics. Turns out the only thing I missed was our president saying “nucular” 100 times in the last few weeks. A friend of mine counted.

It doesn’t feel so good to have the leader of our nation be functionally illiterate. I have a desk calendar that bills itself as the calendar of the “peculiar” language of George W. Bush. Peculiar is a polite word for his affliction. But, when you’re rich, you can escape the stigma of Special Ed classes if your daddy bribes the right people. Of course, I have no proof that this is true, but it may as well be. Either that or the state of Texas needs to really rethink its English grammar and composition curriculum.

So, I don’t really care what the president had to say. I know it all by heart, “Iraq sucks, and I’m going fix the economy by taxing the middle class instead of the rich. Because if you really wanted tax cuts, you would have contributed more to my campaign. This is your punishment.”

It goes without saying that I am now watching for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to come flaming through the Park Blocks, breaking seals, sounding trumpets and sending Preacher Dan into a religious ecstasy from which he will never recover. At least that will shut him up, finally.

Oh yeah, he probably didn’t mention the N-K words. Even if he did, he didn’t say anything intelligent or enlightening about the situation. You see, Saddam is cooperating with the UN inspectors, and North Korea has thrown them out, therefore, we must wage war on Iraq. How is it that I failed Math 111 when these equations are so simple?

I’m also thinking about moving to Canada again. Of course, I’ve threatened this every year Bush has been in office, and I haven’t done it yet. It isn’t so much that I’m lazy, but that I’m trying to make myself attractive to a Canadian employer. You know, with a college degree and stuff. Speaking Korean really doesn’t take you that far in Canada, you know. And I could work in Korea, but the whole North Korea thing is slightly scary. I’m not even concerned about the anti-Americanism, because that was going strong while I was there (actually, it happens 24/7/365, my fellow Americans) and it barely affected me.

One place my dad thinks speaking Korean is going to take me is the CIA. He’s mentioned this to me several times. I’m not really interested in working for the CIA right now. I mean, look at who I would have to take orders from. I didn’t even vote for that guy. I call him stupid every chance I get. I’ve had my fair share of weird employers, but Bush would be taking it too far. I honestly couldn’t sell out Koreans, or Germans, or even the French (well, okay, I can sell out the French) to someone who wouldn’t really listen to the “intelligence” anyway.

Intelligence doesn’t seem to be part of our Executive’s vocabulary. If it is, it is mispronounced and misspelled, in addition to being used incorrectly in sentences. Maybe the president watched too much television in his childhood. Too many westerns (John Wayne is not known for his elegant elocution so much as his profligate masculinity) and not enough “Schoolhouse Rock.” Of course, he’s probably a little old for that, but I think you can get the Schoolhouse Rocks CD at any Target. My sister will be the first to tell you that’s how she learned proper grammar, though she still ends her sentences with prepositions. Still, asking “Where is that at?” is better than saying the word “nucular.”