Q. Baseball really sucks this year. Thank the Lord it’s only two months till football. I think this might finally be the Razorbacks’ year. What do you think?
A. I think you obviously sent this question to the wrong columnist. The sports editor of the local daily would’ve answered it gladly and expertly, in that unique puerile gibberish of his that is so baffling that it has replaced Navajo as coalition military code in Iraq. Anyway, that’s what I’ve heard.
As for the Hogs, my guess is that those who customarily start the season as skeptics, then get their hopes up, only to have those hopes then dashed, then try to work up some interest in the big bowl game at Shreveport or Nashville, and end yet another season groaning and muttering, will do so again. And those who usually think that this whole barn dance is sick in a funny kind of way, or funny in a sick kind of way, will also think so again. Coach gets bumped up another meg. The AD, who turns 100, names himself as his eventual successor.
Q, Having just moved here from Michigan, I was wondering if there are any outdoor summertime activities that are at all tolerable — or even survivable — in this insufferable sticky weather.
A. One of my own favorites — I always recommend it to disgruntled late arrivals — is the cow hurl. Here’s how you play. Drive down the road until you see a herd of cattle. Go out into the field and select the largest cow with the biggest baddest horns — it will probably be a male cow — and grab him by the tail, whirl him around your head, and hurl him as far as you can. It won’t be far, but your distance increases with practice. The male cow will enjoy the game as much as you do, and will come trotting back for you to toss him again. He might feign belligerence at this point, but never mind. It’s just a put-on. Happy Hurling!
Q. The main thing wrong with the Ten Commandments, in my opinion, is that they are out of date. Why don’t you update them for us?
A. I’ll give it a try, impious old heathen that I am.
I. Thou shalt have no other gods, especially the Egyptian one that looks like a dog or the U.S. imposter that goes around making up lame billboard quotations.
II. Thou shalt not worship graven images on bills of less than a hundred.
III. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain unless thou art a televangelist who just can’t prime the pump any other way.
IV. Remember not to get drunk, play ball, or sell necessities before noon on Sunday.
V. Honor thy father and mother if they’re not just determined to bring thee down.
VI. Thou shalt not kill, except the con-trary and uncooperative, and then only after the most gruesome tortures have failed.
VII. Thou shalt not steal except in the sense that Lou Brock and Scottie Pippin did it, or in the sense of stealing the show as the Calamity Jane character did in “Deadwood.”
VIII. Thou shalt not commit adultery except as payback, to make a legitimate point, or when it’s something genetic that thou just canst not control.
IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness unless it’s an honest mistake or unless it serves a higher purpose like the one about weapons of mass destruction.
X. Thou shalt not covet except really classy merchandise.
Q. Is Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) a lesbian or not? I’ve heard people swear up and down yes and no. It’s important for me to know this before I vote next time.
A. Can’t help you with this one, sport. I can save you $25, however, with a word of advice: Don’t buy this jism-slick new book about Mrs. C. that promises orientation disclosures, with other dirt. It delivereth not. It ejaculates innuendoes with impressive promiscuity, but at the end the arthur gives you to understand that, well, all right, yes, your guess is as good as his.
I figure if the Good Lord wants us to know Mrs. C.’s sex prefs, he’ll get the word out. And I’m guessing he won’t do it via Walter Scott’s Personality Parade, the EIB Network, Fox, CBN, National Review, Liberty University, or one of those billboards. I can’t see him leaking it to Robert Novak, either.
Maybe he’ll zap the lettering off of some of these Decalogue stelae of dubious constitutionality and chisel it on there. In Wallycode.
I’m thinking if P.B. were a whole lot shrewder, he’d remove Mrs. C. from the presidential algebra by appointing her to the Supreme Court. That would get him back in the good graces of the growing swarm of the disgusted, and by eliminating the only foreseeable competition, it would nigh guarantee a Republican White House to mid-century and beyond. The VRWC would howl, but what are they going to do? And he could mollify them with a near-future bona fide nut for Rehnquist. A win-win play for him, but, alack, requiring gumption.

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