A wise man once told me, in a whisper, a choice nugget of wisdom that had me thinking of how many foreign languages I might translate it into once I secured the bumper sticker rights.
 
“Greg,” he said. “Always remember, a bad analogy is far better than no analogy at all.” He clicked his tongue and hung up the phone while I sat dumbfounded. Is it really that simple?
 
Confucius used to expouse such wisdom, and so did Ronald Reagan. But such sentiments haven’t served either of them too well in 2003, have they? One’s off in some other universe and well … Ronnie’s out there too - except for his smile which the Smithsonian is itching to examine up close.
 
I sat pondering this seemingly omniscient gift until a fist banged on my door several times.
 
“Irony Police,” said a voice from behind the door. “We just wanted to be sure that you’re going to make the most of that phone call.”
 
I grunted yes and gave a good-natured thumbs up to the door - some genuine affirmative actions.
 
The Irony cop said good day and I sat down to craft the necessary analogy - one perfectly tailored to a publication of this stature as well as to the dangerous political climate.
 
I recalled a story told to me by a dog breeder who used to run industrial puppy farms that rivaled Hyundai in both quality and quantity.
 
He used to have a female Doberman that he claimed was absolutely certifiable. Even though he had gone so far as to completely isolate her bull males she still managed to conceive a litter and deliver the tiny puppies. Telepathy or some other madness, he claimed.
 
But, he told me, once the puppies were licked clean and feeding she would ferociously pester the pups, rounding them up into little puppy piles in their cage’s corner. Then, she would slowly circle the cage, stopping to spray piss on the pups in one corner while kissing and licking the group in the opposite corner. Several minutes later she would circle again, but this time shower the pups she had been licking in the previous rotation.
 
After boring of that she would lie flat on her belly, keeping her nipples securely out of reach of hungry puppy mouths. She was evil incarnate.
 
The breeder told me that if he tried to help the puppies - or if they sought his help - the mother viscously attack them and spray piss at his face. After a while, she had the little pups trained to accost him as well.
 
He told me he wound up having to destroy most all the puppies. The only pair of her kin that he sold had made local headlines after terrorizing a wealthy, private elementary school.
 
I asked the breeder why he didn’t give the Doberman a mouthful of the business end of a high-powered, American-made firearm.
 
“I thought about that,” he told me. “I even dreamt about it. But in every dream where I try to put her down, she always yanks the gun out of my hands and turns it on me.”
 
“But,” he explained. “She’ll get sloppy and I’ll take care of her good. Or she’ll die of old age. It’s all the same. At least she makes going to work that much more interesting. I can’t be the only bad guy in this place.”
 
I just got off the phone with the Irony Police. They wanted to congratulate me and tell me to watch the mailbox for a certificate of civic commendation. The president’s signature is stamped in one corner in oil-based paint, they said.
 
The whispering caller was indeed wise, or at the very least certifiable - a fine line separates the two. A bad analogy or anecdote or recollection is just the ticket when branding one’s words onto sheets of recycled pulp. Even the worst analogy could very well change the world (i.e. “Axis of Evil”). It’s much more enjoyable and rewarding - and Dubya will agree - to be vague and clever than it is to stand on the proverbial soapbox - especially when puppies are involved.
 
But that’s what it’s all about anyway, isn’t it. The voice of the puppies and their suffering at Mom’s paws has for too long been drowned out by the incessant yelping of thousands of similarly suffering puppies.
 
Bad is good, the wise man said. Or, bad is at least better than nothing - at least with puppies, analogies and military actions.
 
Greg Smith is a journalism major at Cal State Long Beach.

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