The Elephant Maligned

'Therefore, my client is seeking damages for defamation of character.'
Clay Bennett. 12 August 2011.

The elephant is humourous in its appearance. There is the old fable of the several blind men that touched part of the animal, and each suggested another creature. When populations have encountered the animal initially, they were amazed, and in fear. In fiction, they appear in children stories as kindly beasts, because they have family, and communal bonds. They care for each other.

I enjoy humour, the classic set jokes, the elephant situ:

I was on safari in Africa. I got up one morning and shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know.

Q. How do you know an elephant has been in your ice-box?
A. There are footprints in your butter.

Q. How do you raise a baby elephant?
A. With a crane.

These riddle jokes are popular with children. They remember them as adults.

My favorite elephantine joke is lengthier, and not a riddle, but a mirror. I had Professor Carl Gustavson for history: 3 quarters of Russian history, maybe one for 19th century German history, 2 quarters for Russian seminar, and a quarter for French Revolution colloquium. He had taught the courses for so long, he didn't read from his notes. He accumulated anecdotes, and he knew jokes illustrated truths. I was already familiar with the following joke, he added the Japanese line.

Well, after the Great War ended, the nations went to Paris to write the treaties after the Armistice. The maps of the world were being redrawn. Some empires were broken up, and new states were coming into existence. Old states were being resurrected. One should know nation, and state, are two different nouns. A nation is of people, a state is a political creation with borders. Each nation wanted as much territory as possible. For those who have seen, or read, Lawrence of Arabia, know that the Arabs were pressing their cause of independence. They were not alone. The empires of eastern, and central Europe (Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, Russian) were gone, but not those of Britain, France and the United States. This you need to know before the joke starts. It is my favorite elephant joke, i've mentioned this before; not everyone is patient; and as Johnny Carson used to say, "if you got to diagram the joke, you lost the audience".

Switzerland is a neutral country. Switzerland has boarding schools with international students. In a later generation, John Kerry, the probable winner of the 2004 US presidential election, was such an one.

One day, a teacher assigned an essay upon the elephant. Each boy wrote one, which reflected a characteristic, national interest. The English boy wrote about the elephant and how to hunt him; the German boy wrote about the elephant and how to eat him; the American boy wrote about how to market the elephant; the Italian boy wrote about the elephant and his love life; the Swiss boy wrote about the elephant, and his travel through Switzerland, with Hannibal; the French boy wrote about the honor of the elephant; the Japanese boy wrote about the duties of the elephant; the Russian boy wrote about the elephant and the cosmos; and the Polish boy wrote about the elephant, and the Polish question.

Monday, Republicans are expected to convene in Tampa, Florida. Those who ply the flesh trade, especially the peculiar ones, are waiting for another big payday. Those who ply the lobbyist trade for the economic royalists have flooded the town before the waves of the expected hurricane, are waiting for another big payday. I agree with Clay Bennett. The elephant is too noble a symbol. The symbols à propos are vipers and scorpions. The teabagger rattlesnake flag will do just fine.