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In the days before the Internets, my brother and I corresponded over the years using typewriters. The letters were sometimes interesting, sometimes profound, sometimes neither, but several drawings he doodled onto his writings stuck with me, including the one I present for the benefit of all art majors here.

The Platypus, you see, is peg-legged. However, his stilts, which elevate him, switch the leg of that peg to his left. This means he leaves tracks which might cause some to point up his deficienciy, a missing left foot, which he would gladly and ably disprove. It is a very common and necessary method of transference.

You will see behind him Time itself in the common dress of an ordinary railroad watch is stamping even that pegged mark with a full and complete footprint, so that history would judge a tall two-footed being had passed that way.

(I remember in the Little Leagues facing Deadeye the fireballer and watching helplessly as his fastball slapped into the mitt. I thought, the chances of me hitting Deadeye are not as good as the plate umpire also missing it. So I would remain is my stance and think, maybe he won’t see it the way it was. Coulda looked an inch outside to him. This is the hope of Dohbya and his crew about his "legacy.")

We observe the technique currently in the operation of DIMs (Dumb Intransigent Mediocres), the first sampling of which grouping I’ll use is little Danny Quayle, who used to be a major politician of the DIMs. To a question which might be paraphrased with only a modicum of hyperbole:

"Can you explain to us why we should relish the potential for the highest executive position in our land being occupied by a privileged nitwit of no earthly quality?"

Little Danny answered:

"I believe you’ve just asked me about my age and experience. Well, John F Kenedy was my age when he was first elected to the Senate …"

It goes on. A question may’ve been asked, were there any worthy news business agents to ask it, of the current and happily passing DIM:

"Isn’t it true that attacks like 9-11 spring from the craven parroting of the lines from the Likud by politicians interested only in not offending AIPAC and the right wing Israeli party they represent for their own job security?"

And Dumbo;’s answer would be, as it has been:

"They hate us for our freedom"

Palin is another DIM who is a noted peglegged platypus. She is asked what magazines she reads by Katie Couric; she is unable to answer other than "Oh, anything and everything." For months, until this minute, she is unable to answer. So she simply transfers the question to one of Couric criticizing Alaskan backwardness. "We get the same magazines up there as the rest of the US …"

She thinks the fact that someone as accomplished as Caroline Kennedy is not laughed at, not because she doesn’t happen to be an idiot, but because of "class." And Palin’s a joke because she ran in the wrong party, as they would’ve loved her as a Democrat.

At some point, all ranges and stations resort to the Platypus Play. It’s just that DIMs are so easy and fun to catch at it.

* I’m not able to show the image on this site, so please just click to it.

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