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February 5, 2008 is a date with dual significance. First, it's the day on which Missouri and lots of other states are holding their Super Duper Tuesday, presidential primary elections. Second, it's Mardi Gras, which is known as Fat Tuesday in English. This coincidence might prompt some less alert readers (LARs) to ask what distinguishes Fat Tuesday from Super Duper Tuesday. Easy. One of them is a debauched spectacle that prompts brazen displays of public foolishness. And the other is a pre-Lenten celebration.
Two days later marks the start of the year 4706 in the Chinese calendar. For only the second time in its history the United States will elect and inaugurate a new president in the Chinese Year of the Rat. Given the proliferation of candidates competing for this distinction and their general lack of civility towards one another, it only seems fitting to refer to them collectively as The Rat Pack.
Before proceeding, however, I want to anticipate the challenges that might come from some nit-picking readers (NPRs) questioning my statement about the historical significance of our next president and the Year of the Rat. Those who have no interest in this explanation may want to skip the next two paragraphs.
As most alert readers (ARs) already know, the Chinese calendar consists of a twelve year cycle beginning with the Year of the Rat, meaning every third presidential election is held in the Year of the Rat. Prior to the adoption of the 20th Amendment in 1933, however, U.S. presidents were inaugurated on March 4th. Thus, the presidents who were elected in the Year of the Rat prior to 1933 did not take their oaths of office until the Year of the Ox.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to be inaugurated on January 20th (as required by the 20th Amendment) and was therefore the first to be both elected and inaugurated in the Year of the Rat. He was the incumbent president at the time of this inauguration in 1937, as were Harry Truman in 1949, Richard Nixon in 1973, Ronald Reagan in 1985, and Bill Clinton in 1997. Until now, John F. Kennedy, who was inaugurated in January of 1961, has been the only non-incumbent president to be elected and inaugurated in the Year of the Rat.
Back to the presidential Rat Pack. As unedifying as the rhetoric in the current campaign might be, it's still not as virulent as some of the invective that has been exchanged in prior Years of the Rat. In 1828, for example, Andrew Jackson's supporters claimed that John Quincy Adams was a drunken fornicator who sold virgins into white slavery. (Jackson, of course, had no problem with keeping African-Americans in slavery.) Adams's fans, meanwhile, charged that Jackson had committed 18 murders. (It's not clear whether Charles Dickinson, whom Jackson had shot in a duel, was counted as one of these alleged murder victims.)
Homicide wasn't the only misdeed of which Adams accused Jackson. The sixth president of the United States also called his successor a "barbarian who cannot write a sentence of grammar and can hardly spell his own name." Old Hickory, apparently unfazed by this characterization, said in reply, "It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."
While the verbal duels of current and former presidential Rat Packs are undeniably amusing, we must not forget that there are some issues of vital importance to beer drinkers in this election year, not the least of which is the rising cost of raw materials. As was discussed in this space last month, the prices we and other breweries need to pay for hops and malt are going up for reasons far beyond our control. And we have no choice but to pass these increases on to our customers.
As Dan Kopman and I pondered this predicament, I couldn't help but recall a similar situation involving gasoline a few years ago. When prices at the pump rose to such a level that they were causing hardship for drivers, Illinois suspended its tax on gasoline. Wouldn't it be great if state and federal governments suspended their taxes on beer to help alleviate the burden of higher prices for beer drinkers? I'll happily support the first member of the presidential Rat Pack who promises to repeal the tax on beer. And I also promise to pass the savings from such a repeal on to our customers.
In addition to the challenge of increased costs for barley and hops, some breweries are also having to cope with water shortages. While we in St. Louis are fortunate to have an abundant supply of fresh water in our region, some parts of the country, including parts of Florida, Alabama and Georgia, are facing a serious problem of drought. Given the severity of the situation, it's with a certain degree of remorse that I have to acknowledge something I personally did to aggravate a potential drought in Georgia 38 years ago.
In the spring of 1970 I was stationed with the Army at Fort Gordon, Georgia. (I had reported to basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina on February 5th, 38 years to the day before Fat and Super Duper Tuesday.) One balmy afternoon I found myself on KP serving as outside man. In this capacity I had developed the strategy of leaving the water on all the time. Thus, if anyone asked what I was doing, I could respond, "Hosing down the area, sir," to which the response invariably was, "Carry on." On the other hand, if I admitted that I didn't have anything to do, I risked being ordered to clean the grease trap, a far more disagreeable task than wasting water.
As I stood there wasting water, I observed an interesting drama at an adjacent company, where a sergeant and the first sergeant were attempting without success to siphon gasoline from one Jeep to another. I watched them for about ten minutes, during which time they used some unspeakably foul and unimaginative language to denounce the purportedly defective siphon. I then suggested that they might be a little more successful if they moved the Jeep with gas in its tank to a point uphill from the Jeep with no gas in its tank, thus allowing the liquid to flow downhill. They responded with some additional foul and unimaginative language and continued what they were doing.
About ten minutes later the company commander emerged and asked what they were doing. After hearing their explanation about the defective siphon, he replied, "You dumb (plural form of bad word). There's nothing wrong with the (bad word) siphon. Move the (bad word) Jeep with the gasoline uphill from the (bad word) Jeep without the gasoline. Then the (bad word) siphon will work just fine." They did and it did.
The scene was almost as absurd as what one witnesses during Mardi Gras or in debates among the presidential Rat Pack.
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