Dear Dirty America

The following passage reminded me of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and how the rest of us look on in hollow eagerness:

Mainly they were drinking–from entire ox horns; but a few were still munching bread or gnawing beef bones. There was about an average of two dogs to one man; and these sat in expectant attitudes till a spent bone was flung to them, and then they went for it by brigades and divisions, with a rush, and there ensued a fight which filled the prospect with a tumultuous chaos of plunging heads and bodies and flashing tails, and the storm of howlings and barkings deafened all speech for the time; but that was no matter, for the dog-fight was always a bigger interest anyway; the men rose, sometimes, to observe it the better and bet on it, and the ladies and the musicians stretched themselves out over their balusters with the same object; and all broke into delighted ejaculations from time to time. In the end, the winning dog stretched himself out comfortable with his bone between his paws, and proceeded to growl over it, and gnaw it, and grease the floor with it, just as fifty others were already doing; and the rest of the court resumed their previous industries and entertainments (Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, 58-59, electronic NOOK version).

You might be saying, they don’t allow dogs in the White House! And especially not at the Correspondents’ Dinner! And I would say, you’re quite right. We had to watch the feast and banter on television and imagine what it was like to be there.

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