8 Ways to Sunday

My faithful 1993 silver Grand Am, Gracie, expired today of complications from a cracked head gasket. She was 108,462 miles old, and is survived by my bicycle, Vic.

In one of his last columns before going on hiatus for 2005, Dave Barry takes a stab at mending the rift between red states and blue states:

Do we truly believe that ALL red-state residents are ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR- obsessed cousin-marrying roadkill-eating tobacco-juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks; or that ALL blue-state residents are godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving left-wing communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts?

Yes. This is called “diversity,” and it is why we are such a great nation — a nation that has given the world both nuclear weapons and SpongeBob SquarePants.

And so today, I am calling upon both sides in the red-blue rift to reach out. Maybe we could have a cultural-exchange program between red and blue states. For example, a delegation from Texas could go to California and show the Californians how to do some traditional Texas thing, such as castrate a bull using only your teeth, and then the Californians could show the Texans how to rearrange their football stadiums in accordance with the principles of “feng shui” (for openers, both goalposts should be at the west end of the field). Or maybe New York and Kentucky could have a college-style “mixer,” featuring special “crossover” hors d’oeuvres such as bagels topped with squirrel parts.

I’m just thinking out loud here. (I don’t mean that figuratively: The neighbors are complaining.) But I truly believe that, if the red states and blue states made a sincere effort to get to know each other, they’d discover that, beneath their surface differences, there are a lot of deep underlying differences.

But that doesn’t mean we have nothing in common. We must always remember that, as Americans, we all have a common enemy — an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.

I made basically the same suggestion last month. He doesn’t even give me any credit, the bastard.