Pirate Ducky

New mascot at the Wake 'n Bake in Glacier.

Tough week for Bush. Willl anyone believe what he says ever again?

He famously said after Katrina that he was not aware of the dangers that the levees could fail. Then AP obtained a video (which FEMA had earlier told ABC it didn't exist) that showed Bush was fully briefed the levee failuer potential was high the day before Katrina hit. Did he lie on purpose? I don't think so. I think this President often say things without thinking.

Bush jumped to the defense to selling America's port to a state that sponsors terrorism and vows to destroy Israel, only to back later to say he was not aware of the deal. I think the problem here was he jumped to conclusions to support his oil money friends without thinking through how you can not be two faced about fighting terrorism (as opposed to: sure, we'll fight terrorist, but these terrorist are my friend)

Even the nuclear deal with India was handled poorly. Engaging the world's biggest democracy is a smart move. Ignoring 30 years of international law and barely diguised trade off for military profits (the US is set to sell India 125 fighter jets & lots of profits for GE on nuclear technology) to the public is just clumsy.

This country was already divided between people who agree and disagree with Bush idelogically. Curiously now both camps are being united to agree that Bush is also incompetent.

My friend Anne forwarded this very funny New York Times restaurant review of HOOTERS:

There are nights when even the most committed gourmand cannot wrestle with another Niman Ranch pork chop, ponder yet another panna cotta or hear another server murmur, “Pardon my reach.”

And on one of those nights, not so very long ago, I went to Hooters.

Yes, fellow New Yorkers, we have one here. It’s in midtown, really just a stone’s throw from Le Bernardin, and it has features and frills that Le Bernardin doesn’t, starting of course with the outfits its servers, all of them women, wear.

I walked in and noticed two kinds of outfits. Some servers wore tight white T-shirts and tighter white shorts. Others wore tight white T-shirts and what looked like orange panties.

A group of four servers stood inside the door.

“Can I ask a stupid question?” I said.

One of them responded, “There are no stupid questions at Hooters.”

So I inquired about the different uniforms.

A woman in white shorts pointed to herself and said what sounded like, “Dough hoe.” Then she pointed to a woman in orange and said, “Waitress.” She repeated the gestures and words. “Dough hoe.” (Herself.) “Waitress.” (One of her companions.)

Come again?

“I’m a door whore,” she said, decoding the abbreviation she had used. “A hostess. She’s a waitress.” Ah! Do’ who’!

Hooters had more television sets than any sports bar I’d ever visited. All of them were tuned to sports channels. Customers drank sports bar drinks, by which I mean beer.

They ate sports bar food: Buffalo shrimp, Buffalo chicken wings, Buffalo chicken Caesar salads, Buffalo chicken breast sandwiches, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, Philly cheese steak sandwiches, quesadillas. Plastic containers of ranch dressing and blue cheese kept popping up.

In the men’s restroom, on the walls, newspaper sports pages were posted. In the women’s restroom, according to one of my companions, there was a special table for changing diapers.

Infants in Hooters?

There were few women among the customers when we were there. Many of the men had overnight bags on wheels with them. Our waitress said that she serves a large number of foreign tourists, especially from Sweden.

“They fly all the way from Sweden and come straight to Hooters,” she said. “I don’t know why.”

Neither do I. “Persona,” “The Seventh Seal” and other Ingmar Bergman movies didn’t cover this phenomenon.

My friends and I roamed the menu. The Buffalo shrimp weren’t bad: tangy, messy, fried. Can’t quibble with those qualities. The chicken wings provided an excuse to dip and dip some more, and who doesn’t really long to dip?

The burger wasn’t so juicy, though, and the meat in the Philly cheese steak sandwich had been so assiduously minced that it looked as if someone else had beaten us to the task of digesting it.

But I have to give Hooters this: the service was terrific, and that had nothing to do with its visual component. The waitresses were chatty, smiley, helpful, self-deprecating, candid and funny.

They may wear skimpy attire, but they have big hearts.