Woody Is a Doll

In the run-up to tomorrow's big election, I've been monitoring site activity to watch how many hits the Curmudgeon's Guide gets (which, by the way, see, if it's not too late!). Usually folks come here having looked for some form of the search string "conservative voters guide," and manage to find the Woundup in the process. Some folks even stick around for a bit and actually read the Guide. I thank you for even considering my opinion while forming your own.

Every once in awhile, though, this blog is visited due to some rather, oh, peculiar search strings that have little or nothing to do with politics. I do still get searches for "montebello hoax," meaning that school teachers are still assigning students to write about the incident wherein a Mexican flag was flown over an inverted American flag during a protest at Montebello High School a few years ago. Sorry, teachers, it really happened. That fact has simply been too well documented to insist on calling it a "hoax." Blame for that incident is still widely disputed, but not the incident itself. Back to your social engineering blackboards with you.

The search that caught my eye today, though, was "how to fix Woody's head." It is a question that has, I confess, triggered a primordial response deep within my psyche.

First, of course, there's the obvious fact that I was completely unaware that my head was in need of fixing. Not that various liberals and alternative religionists haven't gently suggested such a thing in the past. My comments section is chock-full of folks who somehow question my intelligence. But even when they do, they never imply that my head needs fixing. Re-educating, yes. They universally seem to agree that I need serious re-educating. But not fixing.

Then I looked to the source of the question. The chap (we'll assume a male of the species for strictly generic purposes) is based in India, or at least was using the India version of Google, so there may be something of a language barrier at play. I spent time in Guatemala some thirty years ago, and the local Mayan dialect used the question "is your face good?" to ask whether you were, in fact, feeling fine. "Good my face," I would reply (although not, obviously, in English) which seemed to satisfy local custom. Perhaps "fix head" is, in one of the Indian dialects, an indicator of bad taste, as in "you would better appreciate this snake stew if your head weren't broken."

But, no, I have long known about my blog's title and its uncomfortable similarity to "Woody's Round-up" which figured so prominently in "Toy Story II." Now, I have every admiration for Pixar and their writing teams, and I picked the name "Woody's Woundup" as (I thought) a clever play on my long-standing nickname and the allusion to Toy Story, but which could also be interpreted as my being constantly "wound up" about something or other (meaning politics). Hence I get visited by numerous folks — primarily in Japan for some reason — who are looking for information on the Round-up. Google's infamous search engine uses that fabulous proximity logic of theirs and sends them here. Thanks, Google!

Hence, in the final analysis I'm forced to conclude that this individual was actually concerned with the state of Woody's head, meaning that he has a Woody doll from the movie, and has somehow broken the poor thing's melon. It is a tragedy, to be sure, and one for which I hope this person finds immediate relief. After all, a cow may be sacred in India, but who knows what significance a Woody doll may have?

Because This Electon Wasn't Weird Enough, That's Why

This election has certainly had its ups and downs.

I think it is completely defined by the deeply insightful and profound analysis proffered by newly anointed political commentator Paris Hilton. (Extreme content caution if you choose to watch the video. Think Carl's Jr. commercials.) Her astute description of McCain as "white-haired dude" is probably the best her generation has to offer right now. Althouse thinks it was a pro-McCain message. Certainly he chose to play it up that way. "Sounds like she agrees with our 'all of the above' approach," was his rejoinder.

McCain has given conservatives a new definition of pain. If we can survive his approach to border security, we can handle just about anything. See-dubya (blogging for Michelle Malkin) follows the story of the most recent incursion into US territory by the Mexican army. He strongly suggests building some sort of "barrier thingie" as quickly as possible, which is something that McCain can only claim lip-service to supporting.

Obama, meanwhile, gives us pause. How many seasoned politicians do you know will tell a seven-year old that the nation is a mess? As a parent of (former) seven-year olds, I can tell you that this would not have been my approach to the question, politics be damned. My seven-year olds were impressionable enough to have gotten many nights' worth of nightmares had I answered the question the way Obama did. But an Obama without a teleprompter is like a fortune cookie without the paper inside; all air, no substance.

But none of the above is the reason for my headline. No, this election just got weirder with the introduction of (I can't believe I'm typing this) Obama and McCain paper dolls. Yes, it's true. Dover Publications has them available for $7.99 each. They are the work of Tom Tierney, whom Mrs. Woody informs me is quite a well-known figure in the paper doll business.

The likenesses of both Obama and McCain are those of the insipid male models who used to grace Sears catalogs throughout the 80's and spilled over into most other retail outlets. I'm guessing they both come with multiple empty suits. You expect to see the both of them on a page touting "evening wear" for the "deal-making man."

(Not that Woody can brag here... I was once photographed in similar outfits in our local fish-wrapper in the early 90's. That's because I was a featured soloist for our local Chorale's holiday concert and we had agreed to do a fashion shoot for the Life section of the paper. Let me be frank: Woody is no fashion model. And I was nowhere near as, um, portly as I am today.)

Anyway, the thought of my girls even wanting to own paper doll versions of either (or both!) candidates just sends me to my knees, choking with laughter:

"Okay, Mr. Obama, you get to be the fairy princess who controls the whole kingdom of Obamatopia! Pretend you're waiting for your chamberlain to bring you your speech before you go talk to the peasants!"

"And, Mr. McCain, you can be the evil Dark Knight who wants to invade Obamatopia and has an old horse that can't run very fast, and your battle-axe is rusty so you hafta trade it for a wand made out of flowers and you try to find Obamatopia but it's enchanted and that's why you're lost!"

Hey, my kids always use exclamation points when they play. Don't yours?

Anyway, if you have $8 to kill, go ahead and buy a paper doll. Here's an even better idea: buy the set of two. Then you can stage your own mock debates on YouTube using the paper dolls. (Some restrictions may apply.)

They're bound to be better than the real ones later this fall.