Mother Goose in the Nixon White House

The release of President Richard Nixon's tapes have been quite interesting. It shows a paranoid, obsessed president who ordered unnecessary break-ins and planned to find an African American shill to run as a Democrat against him, funded by the Republican coffers.

But what the public has not hear is the more sensitive, softer side of Nixon. The staff at portorchard.com was recently privileged to hear some of the other tapes that were released, including one particularly touching track of the President as he told his children, Tricia and Julie, a bedtime story late one night. It went something like this:

"Once upon a time, there lived a little man named Spiro Agnetto. He owned a little shop that made marionettes. His shop was filled with them. But in one corner was a special marionette, complete with strings and joints.

"Agnetto worked on him every day. He lovingly painted his mouth and eyes and gave him a little stick for a nose. He even added a receding hairline to the top of his little wooden head. When he was finished, Agnetto tried to think of a name. Suddenly, it came to him. 'Nixonocchio!' he exclaimed. 'I'll call him Nixonocchio.'

"Just before Agnetto went to sleep that night, he made a wish that his puppet would become a real politician. As he slept, a fairy came from out of the sky, flew through the window and said, 'Because you have been so good, Spiro, I'll grant you your wish.' Then she waved her magic wand and Nixonocchio awoke.

"But the fairy told him that he was not a real politician yet, and the if he proved himself brave, unselfish and truthful to the last, that he could be a real one. It was up to him to choose between right and wrong.

"To make sure he knew which was which the fairy appointed a cricket, Kissinger Cricket, to be his conscience. The fairy tapped him on the shoulder and he became Secretary Kissinger.

"The next day, Agnetto sent Nixonocchio off to the White House. The old gentleman was pretty happy calling his puppet, Mr. President. How were they to know that some old meanies were going to try to make trouble for old Nixonoke?

"A sly fox called honest John, a bad cat named Liddy, a villain called Haldeman, and a real baddy known as McGruder, tried to sway Nixonocchio to go with them to the Land of Watergate. 'All the real politicians go there,' said Haldeman. 'They just follow the Road to Injustice all the way to the Point of No Return.'

"Nixonocchio was worried whether or not there were any strings attached. 'None,' said Honest John. 'It's as easy as bugging the Democrats.' Nixonocchio was relieved and began to sing this song:

'I got no strings like ITT,
there are no strings on me!
Hi, ho, merri-o, that's the only way to be!
I want the world to know, nothing ever worries me.'

"Nixonocchio followed his new found friends to the Land of Watergate. Along the way he told so many lies to so many people, that he suddenly sprouted . . . you guessed it: big long, gray ears. Within moments, his face grew hairy and it took on a new form. Poor Nixonocchio! He had lied so much that he made an ass of himself.

"Nixonocchio now realized the trouble he had gotten himself into and he hurried home to ask Agnetto what he should do. But, when he arrived there, Agnetto was gone; vanished from public view. While he stood there wondering what to do next, an aide flew in and delivered a note. It said that Agnetto had gone looking for loopholes and had been swallowed by Congress, a monstrous whale of a whale.

"After months of searching, Nixonocchio finally found the whale. Or, should I say, the whale found him. Anyway, the whale opened its giant mouth, and in one gulp, swallowed Nixonocchio and a sea of tapes and transcripts. After many, many years of fighting, both he and Agnetto escaped from Congress the mighty whale; a little ruffled, but still in one political piece. And because he was such a good and brave boy in the face of the evil whale, the fairy made him President for Life and they all lived happily ever after in the big White House on Pennsylvania Avenue."

THE END

Well, what did you expect? It's a fairy tale, isn't it?

My wife and I were driving along Interstate 303 last week when we passed a billboard which caught my attention. It was lit all in red neon and proclaimed in bold letters, “ALL SINNER TURN RIGHT ONE MILE.”

“We must be nearing Hell,” I joked, “I wonder what in the devil is going on up ahead?”

The turn drew nearer and being naturally curious, I turned.

The sight that lay before my eyes was unbelievable. There, poised in neat little rows were religions. To the right of my car sat the newer religions; shiny, promising and expensive. To the left sat the older beliefs; a lot of mileage and some rust.

I reached for the door handle and with a click it popped open. At that very same instant, 20 men, dressed in an array of garments, descended upon me.

One of them, dressed in a three piece suit, said to me, “Friend, I can tell that you are in search for salvation… you want the hand of the Lord Himself to take hold of you and lift you from the jaws of eternal damnation.”

Just as he finished his thought, a frail elderly gentleman thrust him aside.

“I represent the First United Christian Neo-Intellectual Church. Have I got a deal for you!”

He led me to the farthest corner of the lot and pointed at his religion. “I can make you an offer you can’t refuse,” he drawled. “Not only can I guarantee you a high place on the other side of those Pearly Gates, I will, if you act now, throw in a subscription to our monthly magazine, Martyr of the Month, for only $10.

While I was thinking over the offer, another man grabbed me from behind and pulled me towards his belief.

“Son, I represent the Reorganized Church of Frisbetology. We believe that your soul is like a Frisbee and that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and you can’t get it down.”

“That’s an interesting concept,” I confessed, “What do you have to offer.”

“Well, it all depends on the level you attain on the roof. We have the Pee-Wee level, the Beginners level, the Masters level and the Professional level. Oh yes, we also have the “Glo-in-the-Dark level but no one has gotten that high yet.

There wasn’t enough time for me to reply for another salesman latched onto me and whisked me away.

“I can see by your expression that you are on the brink of sinning! You need a savior boy, and I have just the one for you. You see this? This is Willie Torvol… he’s a cute little dickens, isn’t he. He became a profit… uh, prophet, at only three years of age. We don’t understand a thing he says but we don’t question our savior boy, we just act according to his commands.

By now, all the religious salesmen had gathered around me – anxious for me to make my decision. But just as I reached my decision, the group began to shout at one another, and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of a ruckus.

“I’ve had enough of you fellows,” I said, as I stalked back to the car. “I think I’ll try the Sinners Bust with Lust Lot down the road.

“I can’t afford anything there but I’ll have a lot of fun looking over merchandise.”

I thought I was over it. This chair thing. But it hit me again at a recent Chamber of Commerce meeting.

You see, my regular seat was taken. I was a few minutes late and wham!, someome took it right out from under me. Years of therapy down the toilet, all because of a futile game of non-musical chairs at the Chamber. I had succumbed once again to a malady known as "Peer Chair Pressure."

Never hear of it? Well, I'll let my good friend Dr. Hiram S. Burnshocker of Uclob University in Peoria, Ill., explain it to you. Yes, this is the same Dr. Burnshocker who discovered that the major cause of teenage pregnancy was teenagers. I met him the last time I went through chair aversion therapy and he guided me though it. I remember as if it was just yesterday. . .

"The P.C.P. (Peer Chair Pressure) Plague is a somewhat common sociological disease which manifests itself at large social gatherings," he told me during our first meeting.

"You see, it all begins with a room full of chairs. It can be at a movie house, a classroom, a party -- even a Chamber meeting. As people begin to assemble in the room, the number of available chairs dwindles correspondingly. The more people, the less chairs. Subsequently, there is more pressure on newcomers to seize a chair . . . to assure themselves a spot. Those with chronic P.C.P. have been know to sit in the same place at a party for five hours straight for fear of losing their seat. On the subconscious level, this translates into their inner struggle to be a cog in the gears of life. Not having a chair is to fail in life . . . a very dangerous situation indeed."

"What do you mean dangerous doctor?" I asked.

"It's very hard to explain, you misguided waif. Come, I'll show you."

Dr. Burnshocker led me down a dimly lit corridor lined with steel doors. We went past four of them, then stopped at the fifth. Burnshocker opened the door. The room was desolate, save the poor soul who inhabited it.

"This is George," he whispered. "He arrived at a party late and couldn't find a chair to sit in. He looked everywhere -- the kitchen, the bedrooms, the bathroom -- no chair. He finally snapped of P.C.P. Don't say the word chair or we'll love him for sure."

"What should I call it," I asked.

"Around George here, it's a 'Four Legged Posterior Receptacle.'"

The next cell we visited was crowded with chairs, stacked as high as the ceiling. There was hardly any room left to breathe, let alone sit.

"This is Judy. She's going through shock treatment right now," Dr. Burnshocker replied. "We're going to force her to deal with the stark realities of a chair oriented society."

As we walked away, I couldn't hold my tongue any longer. "I don't care if this is research or not," I said, temporarily taking leave of my senses. "It's cruel and inhumane punishment!"

Suddenly, there was a rumble, a scream, then silence. By the time we had unlocked and unlatched the door to Judy's cell, she was dead. Crushed by the very chairs she feared during her short life. . .

"Well what do you have to say for yourself now, doctor?"

"As we sociologists say, 'Chair today, Gone tomorrow.'"

After 12 years in business, you begin to be able to separate the stink from the cheese. You can sense a good project for a good client. And you can tell who's going to be a nightmare to work with... usually. Such was not the case with a large college in Washington State. Clover Park Technical College held a competitive bidding process for a new web site. It was a large project and we were the winners. Or were we? Educational institutions often want the world for a pitance. This was the case here. We outlined the scope of the project and did the job as bid. Then came the change orders, including (as any Web design firm knows) the almost impossible to retrofit request to make it Bobby compliant. This is no problem at the front of the project. But making it ADA compliant at this level after the fact is akin to starting over. Since it was beyond the scope of the original project, we simply launched the completed site and sent the final invoice. That was last September, as in 2004. As of today, no payment. And we're talking 6 grand plus. Now, we weren't stupid enough to take on the job without payments along the way and each was paid promptly. Why haven't they paid for a site they continue to use? I leave it to you to figure. They won't answer our emails, our Fed Ex'd request for payment outlining all the terms, they haven 't said crap... So we eat the cost while they get a site. Beware of working with educational institutions... this is the second one that was a nightmare to work with. And I sure hope Clover Park Technical College doesn't teach this practice in their business course.