Elephants and Whales

We were deep into the healthcare reform summit, determined to figure out this enigma wrapped in a riddle, when a friend notified us that the women’s curling semi-finals were on the USA network. We left the gas bags behind and quickly switched channels.

You can have your Lindsey Vonns, Apolo Ohnos, Johnny Weirs and snowboard dudes and dudettes; we’ll take the ladies of delicate releases, gentle twists of slim wrists followed by the furious sweeping or gentle nursing of dedicated handmaids, aiding the direction and speed of m’lady’s stone.

It’s a chess match on ice, matched only by the thrust and parry of our republic’s representatives in advocating competing cures for healthcare nation. To hear them talk, one would think 300 million people were in the intensive care unit and the remaining few were asking the ailing if they want to live forever.

“It’s a thingy, a fiendish thingy!” as George Harrison exclaimed in the curling sequence in “Help!”.

Yes it is, George. Luckily, Ringo escaped the exploding stone and the Beatles found themselves at Scotland Yard, seeking protection.

“And you shall have it,” the intrepid inspector promised as he cowered beneath his desk.

Just as the wide-eyed Ms. Ott of Switzerland (is she related to Mel of New York baseball Giants fame, who caused Leo Durocher to famously assert, “nice guys, they’ll finish last”?) and the steely Ms. Bernard of Canada dueled in Vancouver, the lawmakers slid their stones, sweeping with statistics, studies and anecdotes in an effort to announce checkmate. Alas, it was a stalemate.

In curling, competitors get extra innings, er, “ends,” to determine a winner. In policy-making, suits and ties and strands of pearls spin stories until the mind is dizzy with argument.

It seemed to us that one of the purposes of these United States is to save capitalism from its voracious self. Someone has to train the captive elephant not to step on the fleas, or let the beast roam the savanna; persuade the captive killer whale not to eat its keeper, or let the whale kill who it might in the ocean.

‘Tis a special art, like curling and (dare we mention it) golf, which requires furious effort or benign neglect. Yet, as Joyce told us, the newspapers were right. The snow was general all over Ireland, falling faintly on the living and the dead.