FOLEY'S FOLLY and other oddities

A congressional representative who has led the fight to stop internet child predators turns out to be one. This is a whole lot more interesting than Barney Frank's upfront gay love life, much less Bill Clinton's utterly heterosexual pecadilloes. No doubt the Texas Republican Committee will have to promise whoever takes Foley's place in the election all kinds of support for something much more appetizing in the following election. This places the group of politicians formerly known as God's Own Party just behind the Catholic Church in the eyes of the protective parents of America. Soccer moms, NASCAR dads, waitress moms, security moms, and other brands we haven't even imagined yet will be lining up to vote for the dullest candidates they can find in either party (or maybe even try out a third party just for its lack of history.)

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton, having apparently tried and failed to kill Osama Bin Laden, is going after Fox News instead. As regular readers know, I actually prefer leaders who conduct foreign policy by single combat, or at least assassination, rather than the more indiscriminate methods of modern warfare. Maybe he can start a fad?

And finally, I have discovered something worthwhile about golf. My father played it avidly, one of my aunts actually almost went pro (she was left-handed, which apparently is a major advantage for a woman golfer), and my law partner takes off for it every Wednesday afternoon for as long as the weather is decent (which may turn him into a fan of global warming.) But I have just never found it that interesting. Until I realized that golf is almost the only trendy thing that slow people can do and enjoy. We live in a culture that privileges people in a hurry, people who have to multitask to avoid death by boredom, One Minute Managers (and probably One Minute Lovers), and people who cannot take more than an hour and a half for a movie or a religious service. We live in a culture that prizes Attention Deficit Disorder and Hyperactivity. But get them out on a field of grass with 18 strategically placed holes and miscellaneous sand boxes and ponds, and suddenly they have nothing but time. My law partner (for whom the word "hyperactive" was probably coined in the first place) says it's like meditation. I can't imagine anything except golf that would make him care about meditation, though he certainly needs it.

Admittedly, I have always related oddly to organized sports. The Clinton impeachment ruckus turned me into a baseball fan, because the home run duel between Mark Agwire and Sammy Sosa was the only halfway-nice thing happening in the news that summer. So anyway, golf is the last refuge of the Slowskys. Long live golf!