How Hard Can It Be?

Dear Cory:

Thank you to you and your readers for all of the troublesome insight! I particularly enjoyed the prose section - uplifting to the life-long "burro-crat". The poetry was also as well done as anything my mother wrote - 'tis a gift.

So, my question, why is it that Cory refers to himself in the third person? Have we in truth discovered why Bob Dole has disappeared from the front pages? Better that than a personality disorder perhaps! Ah well -- thank you again. Where is your communication strategy for HHCIB? - we need to spread the word! You wouldn't want to consider taking other US politicians north of the line would you?

Taxation Without Representation

Dear TWR:

Your little communiqué has four questions and a generous review of howhardcanitbe.com. What a busy mind you have! “Troublesome insight” is as good a description of our web mission as we are likely to find. Your gracious and appreciative letter was read at our Friday morning prayer breakfast, when the lords and minions of HHCIB assemble over frittatas after running naked in the snowy predawn (this activity is illustrated elsewhere on our site). Needless to say, we are ecumenical in the extreme.

Cory does indeed refer to himself in the third person. He wishes he could cite literary precedents and then bathe in the glow thereof. The truth is that Cory cannot recall how this started, but it can certainly be nothing more than a tic or affectation which now must go on as long as this column lives. While Cory is in the mood for self-revelation, he could surmise about other factors that led to the development of this column’s “voice”: his native narcissism, a bewilderingly irrelevant, lengthy education, and the internal competition of lewdness and propriety. No one has ever stated that his personality is ordered.

Cory has scanned the list of America’s poets laureate to see which one might be your mother. Or is she one whose monumental talents have not been recognized in that way?

Those readers who have withdrawn from the U.S. political scene for reasons of self-preservation may not realize that Bob Dole sometimes referred to Bob Dole as Bob Dole and not as “I” or “me”: that pesky third person again. Cory is not Bob Dole; while he is repelled by Bob Dole’s beliefs and his wife Elizabeth (nicknamed “Lippy”), he cannot but admire him for his war record, his sense of humour, and the chutzpah to tell America about his wilting penis in Viagra® advertisements (granted, it could be greed, not chutzpah, but Cory is unfailingly generous to WWII vets).

Cory furrows his brow when he thinks about Canada becoming a haven for U.S. politicians. We would rather have your nuclear waste; its half-life is apparently shorter than that of corrosive Puritanism.

Our marketing strategy at HHCIB is modest to the vanishing point; we just try to avoid being sued. Anonymity is a treasure, and we are trying to enjoy it before Oprah discovers us and pumps us up until we pop into a million little pieces.