Squirrels are political animals too

According to a recent story in the Sunbury, Pa., Daily Item, the Pennsylvania Department of State has received a filing from the Squirrel Reform Party to be a player, among the Republicans and Democrats, in this year's elections.

Now everybody knows there's no George W. Bushytail in the running, and Theodore Rodentsevelt's term is long since past. Likewise, there's no candidate on the ballot named Filbert Jackson (nor a hopeful First Lady, Hazel Nutt, or a vice presidential Walnut Mondale on the ticket). And let's not even dredge up the sorry tenure, in the 1970s, of President Richard Milhous Nutkin.

So what's up with Squirrel Reform, anyway? In a nation where states are officially considered "blue" (for Democratic) or "red" (for Republican), just where do the Greys fit in?

I believe the party is trying to push a simple agenda that includes these reforms:

1. Campaign contribution overhaul: Donations of nuts shall be restricted only during the autumn months, and limited to a maximum of one bushel per voting household.
2. No political stumping whatsoever. In fact, no stumps at all. Trees are to remain intact in order to house the maximum number of squirrel families.
3. No vicious chattering about the opposition.
4. Digging up - and then reburying - all those nasty political rumors

Just think about it: If they succeed (which may not be such a bad outcome, if you think about it), our nation may end up in even more of a race for the Nut House.

Squirrel has a blog, but no home

You read that right. A homeless squirrel. Anyplace he hangs his nuts is home. Only he doesn't have one.

Meet "Treeless Squirrel." Here's his blog: http://blog.treeless-squirrel.com/
He also has a video on http://www.youtube.com/ - and apparently, quite a following.

Made homeless by the cutting down of too many trees, this activist-vagrant has taken to the streets - and the blogosphere - with the gentle battlecry to PLANT MORE TREES. He devotes his blog to different varieties of trees - and handles the rodent real-estate crisis with grace and expertise that would be the envy of any human real-estate agent.

Humans may have Habitat for Humanity; rodentia has Habitat for Squirrelry, and he is its founder, an articulate, likeable, one-of-a-kind character you won't soon forget.

But then, that's the idea, isn't it?

As American as apple pie

To some folks, there's nothing like apple pie, backyard barbecue, hot dogs and hamburgers to symbolize good old American cuisine. My vegetarian sensibilities have trouble with some of this, of course, but I am willing to accept them as part of our national culture. Some of my best friends do, after all, suffer from burger breath.

Much has been made lately of presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee's predilection toward collegiate squirrel-eating. Debates, jokes - and even a few recipes- have been added to the public verbal fray. One of the more recent entries into the dialectic is posted below, and was written to the Boston Globe, which posted it on their web site, boston.com

MIKE HUCKABEE, in my opinion an honorable man, has been ridiculed for eating fried squirrel while in college. This is better than smoking dope, swallowing goldfish, or stuffing people in phone booths. There was a time when squirrel was a mainstay in the diets of the Founders, who, at great risk of life and fortune, defended the principles upon which our nation was established.

I come from a part of the country where squirrel was common fare to the family of a hard-working coal miner. I now live in a part of the country where many people still eat squirrel. Some of us also eat rabbit, venison, frog legs, gator tail, catfish, and even a bite or two of rattlesnake every once in a while. We also are willing to defend the principles upon which our beloved nation was founded.

I find it interesting that this fellow equates squirrel-consumption with patriotism. I thought our nation's colors were red, white and blue - not gray and red. I am getting a whole new take on civics from this New Englander's letter to the newspaper.

So I will keep this in mind as our nation celebrates Presidents' Day on Monday, a federal holiday on which Americans give thought not just to the men who kept our country strong in years past, but those who, like Huckabee, aspire to lead our nation toward a brighter future.

In Huckabee's case, not so much brighter - but bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

I shudder at the very thought.

For squirrels, an election year!

One of the latest polls in Great Britain, conducted by a popular wildlife artist, shows that the red squirrel unquestionably weighs in as a national favorite. This report in the British press is one of many that bears the happy findings.

Imagine that! All of this done without a caustic national televised debate between prominent squirrels drawn from the Red and Grey factions, without anyone breaking the bank to hire an expensive Rodent Spin Doctor, without a smear campaign alleging that one squirrel stole nuts and betrayed the public trust, and without the bother and trouble of grassroots squirrel groups attempting to buy broadcast commercials advocating for their particular species.

American (and perhaps British) politics could learn something from this. There is honor (and honour) in just dealing in basic truths.

Hmmm, perhaps a Red Squirrel should be running for Prime Minister - or drop a hat (or a set of fluffy ear tufts) into the ring for the U.S. Presidency?