iPod One
So it was revealed recently that President Bush now has an iPod music player. While much has been made of the what's on the playlist and it what it reveals about the president, not so much has been made about a few other interesting nuggets that surfaced.
One is that Bush doesn't manage his iPod. That 'job' falls to Bush aide Blake Gottesman. Gottesman has the job of selecting and downloading music for the President. That's right, selecting. Bush doesn't pick his own music. What he listens to is screened and selected by a staff member.
So what? Well, it is a bit like having someone tie your shoes for you. iPod One, as the media has dubbed it, is a 'shuffle' version of the player. For the pop-culturally deficient among you, the shuffle is the simplest version of the iPod. You can play a song list straight through or you can have the player randomize the song order. The only controls are pause, skip, repeat, and volume. It doesn't even have a display. The software can be configured to fill the shuffle with randomly selected songs from your music library, or you can create your own list.
Most of it happens auto-magically. My mother has one and has no problems using it. This is a woman who is so computerly naïve that when she hears the word 'gig' she
thinks of a long pointy stick you use to spear frogs or flounder, yet she
can manage her shuffle with aplomb. The fact is, you really need little more than a functioning brain stem to use one of these puppies. Which is fortunate, because I've long suspected that 'little more than a functioning brain stem' is exactly what Bush possesses. It would at least explain his Administration's unfortunate and misguided interference in the whole sad Schiavo affair.
Now that minions perform these tasks for Bush isn't terribly suprising to me; I've long suspected that he was under Dick Cheney's remote control. ( I'm convinced that the 'mystery bulge' on his back during the debates wasn't a radio pack, but actually the remote receiver. ) However, it does make me wonder what other simple functions are handled by Bush aides.
Looking back over the last few years, one that springs to mind is chewing. Remember the Pretzel Blackout? Presidential doctors yammered on about 'eating too quickly' and 'pressure on the vagus nerve.' Yada, yada, yada. All I know is that I've been eating solid food for most of my forty years, and have never managed to knock myself out. In fact, no one I know has managed to either. Chewing is one of those functions that doesn't cause most of any problems.
No, the sad truth is the Pretzel
Blackout occured because the
presidential chewer had slipped away for a bathroom break, leaving Bush unattended in the presence of food.
Bush attempted to eat, but eating and simultaneously watching TV was really more than he could handle. He forgot to chew, and instead attempted to swallow large hunks of sourdough pretzel whole, and consequentially nearly choked to death.
In fact, if the chewer had gone to the bathroom to 'read,' the world might be a very different, and arguably better, place. Sadly, the literacy rate in the Bush Administration is low, so he was only gone for a moment. He found Bush before ( further ) brain damage had occurred.
Now I know it's unseemly to imagine the 'Leader of the Free World' having prechewed food spat into his mouth like a helpless baby bird, but it's not unreasonable. The Bush's have a history of food problems. Back in 1992, Bush the First had a food-related incident in Japan—well, more accurately, he had a food-related incident in Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa's lap. So W is just his daddy's boy. It's good to see that the nut doesn't fall far from the Bush.
Kissy notes, proposals, and paypal to gspot@graysong.com . Hateful comments to president@whitehouse.gov .
