January 31, 2000 -

TOW, TEXAS

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-- A little Cur-mudgeonry...

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The Clinton-watchers say President Clinton's State of (Dis)Union speech outlined a blueprint for spending at a rate of $6 billion a minute. Not bad for 89 minutes worth of speaking, but the President missed a big one: the Continuing Cur Crisis in America. I'm certain the crisis here is replicated all over this land. Allow me a few words of explanation. Crises aren't simple.

This one involves Dork, the SuperPup. A 101-pound lab/pit bull cross, Dork is Vice President/Security for our business, Cottonwood Cove Resort. Of a sudden recently, Dork became as lackadaisical as a government employee on Groundhog Day. So I spirited him to the vet's office in Llano in my pickup truck.

The vet drew some of Dork's mixed-breed blood for testing and told me Dork might have Lymes disease - or another blood ailment whose name I can't recall. He said whatever that one is was imported into the United States by German Shepherd dogs used on guard duty in Vietnam.

I haven't received Dr. Kassell's bill yet, but I know it won't be two cans of Alpo. Which brings us closer to understanding the Continuing Cur Crisis.

We all need to write Algore and the other political candidates to check for their positions, if any, on federalizing PuppyCare. I know that I'm not the only American who is fed up with paying his own PetCare bills. Bill and Hillary have, they say, saved the children. Now it's time for someone to preserve the pups, especially mine.

Most people are too busy poop-scooping or buying dog food to realize that we in the middle class are the only ones left out of good animal assistance. Rich people can deduct the costs of their Dobermans, Rottweilers and poodles as part of their security systems. The allegedly poor can use food stamps to buy T-bone steaks for their hounds.

We have to four-foot the bills for our friends. It just ain't fair and any government that wants to be everybody's nanny should at least step in and subsidize Hound HealthCare.

I have been a political conservative much of my life, but I hear from some of my moderate/liberal friends that the Poodle Lobby got to Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s. They say the Reagan era sicced all federal funding on blueblood dogs - with nary a coin for curs. Now that I think on it, there have long been hints that our government has been run for AKC members. Henry Kissinger once was decried as "Nixon's Poodle," for instance. My leftish friends tell me that George W. Bush, and his Old Daddy, always have been "lap dogs" for the rich.

People not attuned to the Cur Crisis probably missed the hidden meaning of that. Hard-working mongrels such as Dork won't fit onto the average lap. See?

So this is insidious discrimination and as with most scandals, we can track it back to Reagan straighter than Dork on the trail of a marauding squirrel. Nancy had a poodle.

Some believe President Clinton, in search of a legacy, will have the vision to correct his oversight and announce a billion-dollar CurCare program. But I doubt he will, even though the taxpayers have been quietly footing the bill for all the President's bitches - and Buddy and Socks, too.

I admit that Bill and Hillary made a small step toward fairness with the Family Leave Act. But what did it do for me? For Dork? Wealthier people can take time off from work to have their chauffeurs drive them and their Dalmatians to the vet, but Carole and I are self-employed and get zippo when I drive Dork to Llano. Why should we suffer when others can benefit from the Family Leave Act?

And there's a Puppy Prescription Peril, too. I will have to four- foot the whole bill for Dork's medicine. It is a national scandal.

And shouldn't there be some kind of Veteran's benefit for Dork if he indeed has a virus imported from Vietnam by the Dogs of War? Nixon, again.

I heard on one of the business shows that it is against the law for a Frenchman to work more than 35 hours a week. Even Frogs are protected in more enlightened societies. I think I'll check the Net and see if France has PuppyCare.

I suspect you by now agree that it is high time that the government did something for the Little Hounds. Some tell me there also is a Cat Care Crisis but I don't give a damn about that. Muffin died several years ago.

My son has an iguana named Shiva and would like a hand, too, but I'm against that. If we expand PuppyCare to reptiles we'll be paying all of James Carville's medical bills faster than you can say Shitzu.

I could go on with more evidence but I need to contact my elected officials about PuppyCare. I also want to write a hot e-mail upbraiding George W. Bush. The man is waffling on some of his conservative principles.

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