The Art of Spotting Monsters

I've never claimed to see Bigfoot
And am sure I'll never see him,
But I can guarantee you now
If I should see, I'd flee him.

I saw a video (since lost in the din of interwebs) of an interview of a member of the American Bigfoot Society,* which I'm proud to know exists, given that I thought all of the Bigfoot sightings were in Canada.  If you want to join the Society, you must first fill out an application that requests name, address, phone number, email address, and an answer to the question "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"  Within a day or two, a member of the Board of Directors will be in touch to discuss membership with you.

I don't know.  It all sounds a little bit untoward to me.  I prefer memberships where I can mail a check and never talk to anybody; and the whole felony question opens up all sorts of imaginings.

The Big Foot interviewee lives in South Carolina, which allows me to segue to an article in the October 18, 2010, copy of The New Yorker.  Sean Wilentz wrote the piece, titled "Confounding Fathers." :  "In June [2010], the [Fourth District] Congressman Bob Inglis, of South Carolina, a tough conservative who nonetheless backed Bush's financial bailout, lost a vicious** primary fight with a right-wing insurgent named Trey Gowdy. To his amazement, Inglis was confronted on the campaign trail by voters who were convinced that the numbers on their Social Security cards indicated that a secret bank had bought them at birth."

The moral of the story?  Never shade the truth for political gain, because some day those shadows might grow legs and come after you.

**Vicious has extra-special meaning in South Carolina, the state from which Lee Atwater emerged to pollute the political waters for a multitude of generations.