Usher got issues. We all know that. He would do well, though, to stem The Gall of the Mouth of Usher once in a while, this being one of those times. Rarely has he demonstrated how little he understands about so many pieces of the Human Experience.

A long time ago, in another life, I belonged to a large, suburban volunteer fire department and one night the members of one of our stations decided to go nightclub during their standby. They strung up lights, took up a collection for several kegs, and, of course, hired a stripper. All this while waiting for the fatal gong to go off. Sleep tight, suburbia.

Anyway, when the party was finally over the stripper advanced her hand to be paid the agreed amount. The boys, good and old as they were, suddenly decided there was no contract (if only one of them had called me at home, I could have explained this to him) and refused to pay her. A scene ensued. No rape occurred (that sort of thing was before my time there) but refusing to pay a working woman is not unlike rape. Hell, union hacks would certainly call it that.

But our girl was smart. She left before anyone realized rape was still an option and, since the crew had been drinking (and therefore cursing the chief and other officials all during the night) looked up the chief's name in the telephone book and called him at home to lodge her very reasonable complaint. Surprisingly, all hell broke loose, perhaps because so many people hadn't been invited. Half the board of directors resigned in a public ceremony, the chief spoke frankly with the press, it was lovely. Got all up in the papers and everything. We made the Washington Post for something besides malfeasance!

I suspect our girl at Duke might have done something similar had the steroid-addled Blue Dorks not raped her first. That sort of thing probably takes the wind out of one's sails.

I should make something clear here (I'm sure it's about time): I hate Duke. I have ever since I met my first Duke alum back in 1960. To paraphrase my dear dead mom, "There's nothing wrong with the school, it's just the people who go there." Yeah, I know, I'm trying the case - and the school - outside the courtroom. Well, so is Usher, and he, unlike one's observer, is an execrable fungus on the hull of humanity. Me, I've grown legs and crawled onto the land.

It's true - that's exactly what we've come to look like. Sound like. Act like. Of course I'm using the "Royal We" here. I'm not one of them. I'm a member of the Party of Lincoln and I still have my 1960 copy of "Conscience of A Conservative." In truth, we are not all in that boat. I'm not complaining, mind you - I agree the picture looks accurate. The mofos who've very nearly destroyed the party are almost exactly as portrayed - except worse. You didn't show anybody eating the live rat.

I'd like you to just be aware that there is another faction in the mix. Some people like to call us "RINO"s because they feel that if we don't worship at the feet of Dubya, if we don't support an insane and pointless war, and if we don't cite Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior then we can't be "real" Republicans. I'd just like to say this to them. Fuck all of you. The party's over.

Thank you for the excellent shot. Just please - crop me and a few hundred thousand others of us out of the picture.

Then again, that wouldn't be very funny, would it?

Never mind.

My bad. And a fellow Mick at that! Go figure. I think the jokes still work, just not quite the way I had in mind...assuming I have a mind. How'd I get the idea you were....? Never mind. It's the pain meds, I'm sure.

No, you shouldn't have to defend your cred to liberals, conservatives, anarchists, nihilists or dadaists. What you said was what was important, and you said it so well - and in so few words! God, I wish I could do that, but I think I got a Faulkner gene or something. Anyway, my enormously sincere apologies for calling you someting to do with Frogs, and I still think - hell, even more now than I did when I wrote that, that your comment rang more clear and true than anything before (and probably after) it. The bottom line is it's a KID for god's sake! Save the rest of that crap for....um...you called them "adults", right? Well I guess technically that's what they are. Lord help us.