Yesterday I was in downtown Princeton walking down Witherspoon Street when I saw something in the window of a local shop that caught my attention: George W. Bush dog biscuits.
(I hasten to clarify that I didn’t see them at this shop which is not on Witherspoon; their dog biscuits are different).
The store is not a political artifacts store, it’s a hippie shop: It specializes in “hippie clothes” – i.e., t-shirts and tops in prints and batik, made in exotic (and low-wage labor) locales abroad from hemp, cotton and rough-spun linen – plus it carries stained glass, inexpensive jewelry, and pottery.
As I said, a hippie shop. I bought a sterling silver ring there a few years ago.
The biscuits were displayed in a cardboard box that said something to the effect of, “…crunch, crunch…he’s gone!”.
The biscuits were displayed on a shelf with other goods that carried the logo
I had no idea what 01.20.09 stood for until I read on the mugs “Bush’s Last Day”, which was explanation enough (click on photo to enlarge):
I stared at the goods in bewilderment and admiration.
I was bewildered (yes, I bewilder easily) that anyone would spend their hard-earned after-tax money on this kind of stuff. As you all know by now, I’d rather spend my hard-earned after-tax money on books and shoes, and I don’t wear clothes with writing on them (except for the logo of this company, since I own their stock).
Bewildered, also, that one would hate our President so much that they’d buy a mug and start their morning focusing on his last day in office.
And then I admired how free we are to produce, market, wear and talk about merchandise like this.
I looked at the date and appreciated greatly how our Constitution provides for presidential term limits. It’s a wonderful country where you can tell with certainty the date in the future when one ruler leaves. Britain, France, and many other democracies don’t provide for that. Putin has no sense of humor so I don’t expect any Russian stores will be carrying any such merchandise. Chavez is pushing to end term limits in Venezuela. Castro, Assad, Kim, and other revel in their never-ending tyranny; the very notion of term limits in their societies would mean a death sentence.
I looked at the merchandise and was pleased to see how we have the technology and the means of producing the items, transporting them to the stores and keeping track of the inventory so the stores can reorder.
And I looked in wonderment at the dog buiscuits – the Iranian mullahs consider owning a dog “moral depravity”. How amazing that some people can feed their dogs the effigy of the President, who they despise for confronting the Iran-sponsored terrorism in Iraq, while being blind to the fact that the nuclearly-armed Iranian theocrats would not even allow them to have a dog.
Not only that: people from much poorer countries arrive at our country and can’t believe that we have whole stores and aisles at the supermarkets dedicated to dog food.
We live in a land of abundance, prosperity and opportunity indeed.
Of course, I fully expect that the irony-poor Left will get together for coffee, sipping from their 01.20.09 black mug, proudly wearing the (symbollic, of course) pink 01.20.09 t-shirt and the 01.20.09 black baseball cap and feed the dog GWB biskits (what’s with the spelling? Can’t they spell, or is there a copyright on the word biscuit?), all the while bemoaning how our President’s turning the country into a dictatorship, where we’re all being repressed while the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy oppresses the heck out of our lives.
The disconnection between the fact that they can wear the stuff while making such arguments makes my head swim (* see footnote).
Dr Krauthammer diagnosed BDS as,
the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of George W. Bush.
Drink deeply from your BDS mug, and praise the freedom to do so, folks.
* Footnote: I was talking to a friend yesterday who told me that “makes my head swim” doesn’t mean the same as “makes my head spin”, which I have been using interchangeably.
She says that “makes my head swim” implies delight, and “makes my head spin” implies confusion.
Any clarification on this matter will be greatly welcome.
Update Beth emails,
my head swims means that you are dizzy or lose your balance. So, that seems to me it would be the same as my head spins.
Thanks!
Update 2 My neighbor TigerHawk posts that The New York Times discovers jihadi ideology
More The Albanians won’t be buying any of those dog biscuits
Dr. Sanity has The Carnival of the Insanities:
BDS products are pop for pseudointellectuals, the equivalent of ‘Free Winona’ shirts and Che paraphernalia. I don’t think the producers or the buyers of this stuff put any thought into it at all.
Nobody ever lost money by appealing to the lowest common denominator – the people who are getting rich from BDS are proof of that.