If Sen. Larry Craig wants people to believe he's not gay, he's going to need a better PR tack than he took this week. He just gave us a lot of talk, and it was pretty standard fare for a politician mired in a sex scandal.

To save his career, he is going to have to turn up the rhetoric to unheard of heights, and he is going to have to match a few deeds to his words. His news conference should have been something like this:

The senator appears at the podium with each of his arms wrapped around a Hooters waitress. His tearful wife is off to his side. He begins to speak.

"My fellow Idahoans, I AM NOT GAY. Nor have I ever been. Yet recent reports have forced me to come forward and in unsparing detail discuss my sexual orientation. So let me say this clearly and proudly: I ... love ... women. From the spherical splendor of a nice firm rack (here he looks down the cleavage of each Hooters girl, and they giggle) to the glorious curve of a taut, toned fanny, from the suppleness of their thighs to the softness of their hair, I love women. And, my fellow citizens, that desire grips me like a force of nature. So I have crossed this state for much of my career, sating that desire. My fellow Idahoans, I am a veritable geyser of heterosexual activity. I have spread my seed far and wide among many women. A farm girl in Orofino. A school teacher in Twin Falls. A dominatrix in Boise. They are just a few of the many women (his wife's sobs reach near wails at this point) I have pleasured in my manly way. Is this commendable? Not really. But it is who I am. And so I say to my wife, and to you my fellow citizens, with a sincere heart: Sometimes I wish I were less of a man; that way I could be true to my wife's good loving without being false to myself. (His wife shouts, 'You bedswerving rat-bastard!') And so let me conclude by -- (here one of his male aides comes up from behind and taps him on the shoulder) WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING BACK THERE?! ARE YOU TRYING TO NAIL ME?! (Craig decks the aide) I DON'T LIKE IT WHEN ANY MAN TRIES TO SNEAK UP BEHIND ME! (Composes himself; the aide rolls on the stage, hands covering his bloodied face) Let me conclude by saying that not only am I not gay, I just might be happiest when I am kicking some dude's ass."

This is strong medicine, no doubt. But it just might be the only prescription that can revive Craig's political career.

TOP KATS

When I was a child, Sunday night television meant two shows: The Wonderful World of Disney and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. This was standard kid fare of the time and one show balanced the other. The first gave us animated animals that talked and wore clothes and conducted symphonies. The second gave us real animals that neither talked nor wore clothes but would on occasion eat their young. My parents encouraged my sister and me to take special note of that.

Looking back, Wild Kingdom was the more memorable show. It had a simple format: Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler would go into the wilderness to observe ferocious beasts in their native setting. When the going got tough, Perkins would retreat to the safety of a helicopter or lead-lined bunker while Fowler would go into the underbrush to tag and collar a lion or perform a root canal on a tiger. Perkins would then make some sort of off-camera narration of Fowler's struggle against the beast. The narration was always flat and unemotional and so comically at odds with Fowler's struggles.

But the format was limited and bound to get stale sooner or later, unless every so often Fowler emerged from the underbrush sporting an ear tag, radio collar and a dart gun shoved up his butt. In time, Wild Kingdom lost its hold on my interest, and nature shows in general tumbled down my viewing list.

Enter Meerkat Manor. This is a show about the daily lives of meerkats in the South African Kalahari, but it is more soap opera than nature show. It is oddly addictive.

First of all, despite the name, meerkats are in the mongoose family and so have nothing in common with this cat or others:


The show features a meerkat clan called the Whiskers and their struggles both inside the group and with other clans. There is loads of scheming, betrayal, bloodshed and trysts both licit and illicit. Sure, it's the sort of stuff that you can get by meandering over to History Channel and watching something like Those Wacky Borgias, but the Borgias just lack the goshdarned cuteness of the meerkats. Check out this side-by-side comparison.

The images on the left and in the middle are Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, a brother and sister from Renaissance Italy who left more dead bodies in their wake than Al Capone at a machine gun sale. On the right are meerkats. Even if they had taken part in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the meerkats would still be just too adorable.

The Borgias have earned a fearful place in history because of their ruthlessness and conspiring, but perhaps history might have been kinder had they looked like this:

Or this:

The meerkats' awww-que factor lets people overlook a lot of deplorable behavior on Meerkat Manor. For instance, in the most recent episode an adolescent male and an adolescent female must protect three pups after becoming separated from the Whiskers. The pups are deep in the territory of a rival clan, and if it were to find the pups it would shred them to pieces. (Meerkats, it would seem, have slight regard for cuteness.) So there is mortal peril all about, and what does the young male do? He scampers off to mate with some roving female. Such a dereliction of duty in my family would have gotten me shot, no matter how hot the temptress. But in this case, the meerkat is welcomed back (after a successful rescue mission by the Whiskers) and not even told to wipe the disgustingly sated leer off his face.

It's not hard to relate to the meerkats. They have good days and bad days at work, too, and when they get home, they often face a pain-in-the-ass family. Take Frank, leader of the Zaphods. The Whiskers invade the Zaphods' territory at the start of season three and drive them off pretty easily to less desirable feeding grounds. The Zaphods are again routed in a second showdown. A bad stretch for Frank all around, and all he probably wants to do is kick back, eat a few grubs and geckos and get a little shut-eye. But no. Lola, the dominant female in the clan is only too happy to remind Frank of his recent failures. Every time he begins to burrow for food, she jumps in and forces him away with an "Oh, you're so weak!" shrewishness.

Imagine how you would feel if you had such a partner. Imagine having to go home and tell your spouse that you had been chased out of your corner office by a band of meerkats and now were working in a cubicle -- at a reduced salary. Then see if you get a nice dinner or a can of Cheez-Whiz and a box of Ritz crackers.

This is great stuff to watch, and we don't have to worry about the actors falling into off-camera embarrassments. Flower is not going to crash a Porsche in Hollywood and be bundled off to rehab. She is going to die, but hey, c'est la vie on the veldt.

Each week, we can get our fix of jockeying for position in the hierarchy, killing of helpless rivals, banishing of difficult children and the fighting of rivals for foraging territory without spying on our neighbors or relying on actors who look like they've been cut from the herds that roam Malibu beaches.

There have been a lot of arguments about the need to roll back global warming recently, mostly of the save-the-humans variety. That's all well and good, but there are several people that I wouldn't mind seeing bumped off this rock and if I have to go with them, then so be it.

However, if we frame the argument around the survival of the meerkats, we might actually get something done.

Art work by Karen Ludwig

Having been born and raised in Florida, I conceitedly believe that I am impervious to heat and humidity. When the weather service issues a heat advisory, instead of staying indoors and turning the thermostat down to 65, I dash out on my bike to ride 40 miles or so -- just to show off a little.

I had never suffered much from that in the past, because the excessive heat usually lasted only a day or so. But having spent the past two weeks riding in 100+ degree heat, I can admit that I have gotten my ass kicked by the sun. I have finished rides hot and exhausted, and my recoveries have been a little slower than usual. So instead of having the longish piece I have in mind ready today, I'll have to post Plan B.

Years ago, my cousin turned me onto Dr. Science. Those of you who listen to public radio probably know all about him. But for those who don't, I give you this link:

http://www.drscience.com/

My favorite question was whether zebras would register on the checkout line at supermarkets. But that was years ago, and I doubt you can find it. But if you have 15 minutes or so to kill (and any office worker who can't manufacture 15 minutes of lazy Web surfing has no right to his or her cubicle), check this site out.

DO YOU REMEMBER VIDEO OF THE WEEK

OK, so this is a little choppy in the beginning, but it's still viewable. I've always like the pseudo-Weimar theme of this video by The Church.

With Michael Vick's dogfighting days over, people with a taste for bloodsport will have to look elsewhere. Fortunately, our society has no shortage of celebrities with the judgment of a hamster, stars who would do anything to snatch the spotlight their way.

And so I fully expect Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to stage a dogfight between their tea-cup-size Chihuahuas Tinkerbell and Bit Bit. If that doesn't fire up the public's bloodlust, I don't know what will. Perhaps the marmoset or whatever sort of simian Hilton has for a pet can jump into the fray and demonstrate its prowess with knives.

And at the end, with one or both of the dogs dead, Hilton can display her newfound appreciation of the Bible and read scripture over the fallen fighters. It would humanize the moment, and make the whole thing suitable for Fox.

As video cameras have gotten smaller and smaller, their ability to invade our lives has grown bigger and bigger. So anytime we go out in public, we can't have a careless moment. You might just go home and see yourself scratching your butt on the local news.

It also means you can kind of screw with people. A co-worker of mine has a son whose Little League team won the Southeast Regional Tournament and is now heading at Williamsport. During the deciding game, my co-worker was shown high-fiving other parents after her son got a crucial hit. It was a nice scene of maternal pride.

Of course, I found a way to undercut that. When my co-worker returned, I couldn't wait to talk to her.

"You know you were on TV, right?" I said. "But did everybody else tell you that it was when your boy got that hit? They were just being nice. What was really on the tube was you returning from a beer run. A little old lady accidentally bumped into you, causing a small amount of beer to spill. You looked at her for a second and then decked her with a haymaker that would have stunned an ox. I mean, we're talking the De Niro blood spew in Raging Bull. It was awesome."

PLAUSIBLE POTTER

By all accounts, the Harry Potter books ended with a very satisfying culmination. Voldemort vanquished, the shadow of tyranny lifted from the wizarding world and our heroes married and nestling happily in the bower of middle class prosperity. J.K. Rowling did something rare in the scribbling realm: She created a world and characters that captured the imagination of much of the world and that mattered deeply to her readers.

And she tried to convince us that Harry, Ron and Hermione were able to live happily ever after ... as government workers.

There's a lot that's plausible about the Potter universe -- flying cars, dragons, talking portraits, running desks and so on. Anybody who rightly spent his or her teenage years going to the wrong sort of parties is no stranger to such odd visions.

But there's just no way the mind wrap itself around any notion that Harry Potter and his friends find happily-ever-after through mid-level toil in a bureaucracy. Most of them spent their formative years fraught with danger and excitement and at 17 earned great acclaim as heroes of the wizarding world. (The recent past tells us that it is quite likely that Harry, Ron and Hermione would find their celebrity a little slippery and wind up crashing into rehab.) Yet they appear in the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to be perfectly content in their mid-30s, living lives of suburban anti-climax complete with 9-to-5 jobs, TPS reports and water cooler gossip. But that just doesn't add up; it's like trying to imagine James Bond merrily assuming the role of a school crossing guard.

But reason doesn't have to run off screaming into the night at the mention of the Potter epilogue. A few changes here and there, a touch of the disillusionment and regret that comes with adulthood, might render things a little more realistic for those of us of a certain age.

Try this on for size.

Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year. The morning of the first of September was crisp and golden as an apple, and as the little family bobbed across the rumbling road toward the great sooty station, the fumes of car exhausts and the breath of pedestrians sparkled like cobwebs in the cold air. Two large cages rattled on top of the laden trolleys the parents were pushing; the owls inside them hooted indignantly. Except one wasn't an owl -- it was a pigeon in an amateurishly fashioned owl disguise. Two boys and a red-haired girl shuffled behind their parents, and the younger of the two boys was making low whimpering sounds.

"Albus, for the last time, we will buy you a proper owl the first chance we get," Harry hissed at the boy. "But until then, you'll have to make do with Bertie. So why don't you just shut the @#%& up, OK?"

"But the other kids will laugh at me for not having a proper owl," Albus whined plaintively.

"Oh, the other kids are definitely going to laugh at you, you little nancy boy," Harry sneered, "but not because of Bertie."

James Potter chuckled at the insult his father had dumped on his younger brother, but his father's glare silenced him quickly.

"Daddy doesn't mean that," Ginny said to the whimpering Albus. "He's always been very impressed with your sewing ability and taste in fabrics. Haven't you, Harry?"

"Oh, yes. Very," Harry said curtly. "Maybe you can design the Quidditch uniforms for whichever house you're sorted into." But the sarcasm was lost on Albus, and he began to brighten up at that thought.

"Oh, he'll definitely be sorted into Slytherin," James jeered. "Slytherin without a --"

"SHUT THE @#%& UP, JAMES!" Harry roared at his son. He was sick of the cycle of baiting and blubbering that encompassed his sons. Ginny stopped her trolley and glared at him reproachfully as she put put her arms around Albus, who had taken James' bait and was crying that he wanted to be in Gryffindor. Lily just stared at her brother. She was almost habitually silent.

"C'mon," Harry said to his wife, "let's just get to platform. The sooner we get these two on the train to Hogwarts, the sooner we can have some peace."

As they approached the barrier between platforms nine and ten, Harry felt the sinking mix of dread and disappointment that always gripped him when he was in a throng of wizards and witches. He could always feel their stares and whispers.

At 36, he was no longer the youthful hero celebrated in the stories, cereal boxes and computer games. He still had all of his hair and his work as an auror had kept him reasonably fit. But his green eyes had become clouded with suspicion and cynicism, and he had acquired the air of someone who felt perpetually cheated. Ginny was still beautiful, but her former radiance had been replaced by a weariness whose outward signs were the dark semicircles that never seemed to leave her eyes.


It was supposed to have been a little sunnier. The days after Voldemort's downfall had held such promise. Harry was a hero who never had to worry about buying his own dinner or drinks, and the endorsement offers came pouring in. Furthermore, Harry seemed a shoo-in to play seeker for England's Quidditch World Cup team. It was pretty heady stuff for a teenager, and Harry soon began to bask in a sense of entitlement. As far as he was concerned, he more than deserved his free ride, after having been hunted most of his life by an evil maniac and then saving the Wizarding World. He began to see his future as an uninterrupted gravy train of fast and expensive living, lucrative endorsements, Quidditch and shagging Ginny Weasely.

But Harry was too young to appreciate the fickleness of people's hearts and fate. The more people celebrated Harry's heroism, the more they felt their faint-heartedness, which nobody enjoys much at all. In time, people found Harry's story about How I Kicked Voldemort's Sorry Ass a little tiresome, and they began to think that Harry was being a bit tasteless in the way he was cashing in on his fame. The free dinners and drinks began to grow scarcer, and Harry's endorsement deals began to dry up.

One thing that didn't dry up was his taste for the high life. This in time put a strain on his finances, yet Harry was unwilling to slow down and get a steady job. He looked around for an investment that would allow him to live comfortably off its return. Unfortunately, he decided to sink all his money into a chain of Asian massage parlors for wizards that Cho Chang was trying to open. ("If you think my story had a happy ending, then you'll love a relaxing visit to one of Cho Chang's Love-You-Longtime Spas," the tacky billboards said.) But wizards did not need to relax as much as Harry and Cho had assumed, and the venture went bust. A freak groin injury ended Harry's chances of earning a living at Quidditch, and at 23, Harry found himself broke and Ginny pregnant. There was nothing left to do but shuffle off to the Ministry of Magic and take a job. He also had to take a new moniker: The Boy Who Lived ... and Lost a Gob of Dough.

He reflected on all this as the barrier grew closer. With a cocky look over his shoulder at his younger brother, James took the trolley from his mother and broke into a run. A moment later, he vanished.

Young Albus looked at the barrier and hesitated. Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Al, either you run through that barrier, or I kick you through it. Understand?" Albus nodded fearfully and broke into an uncertain trot. Ginny ran forward to help him, and the two quickly vanished into the barrier. Harry took his silent daughter's hand and they followed. Her silence always unnerved Harry, but at least she wasn't conjuring up roses and other flowers like she would do when he and Ginny were having a huge row.

They emerged into the thick white mist of the Hogwart's Express. Ginny and Albus were apologizing profusely to an elderly witch whom they had run over with the trolley, and James was nowhere to be seen. Harry handed off Lily to his wife, and began scanning the crowd. It didn't take long to find them.

"There they are," he said to Ginny, pointing toward a family walking toward them -- a slightly swaying husband, a scolding wife and two children who were casting furtive jinxes on each other.

"Ronald Weasely, I know that demonstrating an ability to drive drunk is NOT part of the Muggle driving test!" Hermione hissed. "And if you ever, pull this stunt again I will take you wand and shove it so far up your --"

"Aww, chill out, honey," Ron said with a slight slur. "Maybe later I can show you what else Muggles do in their cars."

He began groping her there on the platform and trying to French kiss her, but Hermione was clearly not in the mood. She broke away from his embrace, pulled out her wand and hit him with her own special disarming spell.

"Flaccidio!" she shouted, and the amorous look in Ron's eyes was replaced by a crestfallen look. Behind the bickering couple, their daughter had won her battle with her brother. She had pulled out her new wand and used it to lift the young boy by his underpants and hang him from a nail in a crossbeam seven feet off the platform. The child's wails distracted the parents from their argument.

"Good one, Rose," Ron said to his daughter in between guffaws at his son's plight. "Hugo, you just enjoy the view up there until Daddy gets you down."

Harry, Ginny, Albus and Lily greeted them. Ginny and Hermione were talking with each other, and it wasn't hard to guess what they were taling about, with all the head-shaking and eye-rolling. Albus and Rose began talking about what houses they wanted to be sorted into. Lily just stared up at the caterwauling Hugo.

"So, mate, Hermione still serving it up with a teaspoon?" Harry said quietly to Ron.

"Yeah, mate, and it's getting old. I haven't had any for months."

"Have you thought of using the Hornificus charm?"

"Hell, no! That won't mean that she'll do me," Ron said. "She just might wind up shagging half the ministry and then move on to the house elves."

"Yeah, I see what you mean," Harry said as he pondered Hermione's past idealism. "You know, I could give you Cho's number."

"Really, mate? Maybe I should call her, and then ..."

"And then?" Harry asked.

"And then accio sex!" Ron said as he and Harry laughed and high-fived like teenagers watching porn for the first time.

"Say, look who it is," Ron said quietly with a glance at a spot about fifty feet away. The mist thinned somewhat, and Draco Malfoy and his family stood out for a second in sharp relief. Malfoy's son resembled him as much as Albus looked like Harry, and as soon as he saw Harry he tugged at his father's long black robe. Draco looked down at his son who was pointing at Harry and then looked at Harry. He smirked, and then looked back at his son and formed and L with his index finger and thumb and placed it against his forehead. The younger Malfoy laughed maliciously.

Harry and Ron watched with seething indignation.

"Whaddya say we plant evidence that Malfoy is a dark wizard," Ron suggested eagerly. "He's more than overdue to be taken down a notch."

"Not yet," Harry said. "We've been a little careless about that, lately, and it would look too obvious. But soon ... soon."

It was getting close to 11 and time to board the train. Hermione and Ginny broke off their conversation and turned to take care of their families. Hermione made Rose get Hugo down from the beam and gave him some Polyjuice Potion so he didn't have everyone staring at him as the Boy Who Got the Atomic Wedgie In Front oF Everybody. Ginny was quietly assisting Albus through his latest crisis about sorting.

"Green and silver are perfectly fine colors," Ginny said. "Accessorizing should be no --"

"Well, time to go," said James as he dashed back for goodbyes he clearly wished to keep short. "Write me every so often, Mum and Dad. And you, Albus, stay away from me at school, OK, snake boy?"

"But I won't let myself get sorted into Slytherin, I won't!" Albus said. "There's so much more I can do with the vivid red and gold of Gryff--"

"SHUT YOUR GOB NOW!" Harry shouted. He had never been comfortable with his younger son's effeminate interests. "Whichever house you get sorted into is going to get the butt of many jokes if you keep that talk up. Now get on the train! Geez, I need a drink at the Leaky Cauldron."

Albus gave one last hug to his mother and boarded the last car with Rose. As the train sounded the final boarding call, a mother of another first-year student approached Harry and Ginny.

"Excuse me," she said. "But aren't you Harry Kotter?"

"KOTTER?! KOTTER?!" Harry roared. "Who the hell do I look like, Gabe Kaplan?! Now piss off!"

Harry turned to Ginny. "They've forgotten who I am. They've forgotten what I did for them. Let's face it, ever since that piece of Voldemort was blasted out of me, I haven't been as cool as I was. No, no, Ginny. Don't try to tell me I'm wrong. But I'll show these @$%#& right now that I still have some of that danger in me.

"Hey, everybody!" Harry shouted as Ginny began to look panicked behind him. 'You think Harry Potter can't be cool without a little of Voldemort with him? Well, check this out! I still got some of the bad man's mojo!"

And with that, Harry started doing an odd, snakelike dance on the platform in front of the gawking parents and departing children. The train began to leave the station, and Ginny changed herself into a mouse that scurried under a nearby bench. Mercifully, Harry's performance was cut short by a cascade roses that appeared from nowhere.

DO YOU REMEMBER VIDEO OF THE WEEK

We return to animation for this little wonder from Elvis Costello. It came out in 1984, I believe.



I'm still sick with a cold but on the downhill side of it. At present, I have the distinct joy of tormenting my co-workers with the sounds of bronchial congestion and productive coughing. But they're good people; they only hate me a little for it.

COLD COMFORT

I recently went home to Florida, and instead of returning with a Mickey Mouse hat or some other tacky trinket, I brought back a cold. It has thrown my sense of humor a little offline, and it has put my sleep cycle back to that of a 9-to-5 worker.

That is not a good thing.

I like sleeping late because I work until midnight or 1 a.m. Call it virtuous sloth. And I miss the morning news shows and The View. But that has come to a temporary halt until I regain my health and begin staying out late and carousing again.

Here's what I have learned so far from waking up early. There are bad movies on early in the day. John Lithgow is better as a psychotic or eccentric than as a nice guy. The home run record is "prolific" or so say Mike and Mike in the Morning. Most of all, I have learned that it is not so bad to dream about failed tests and public nudity when the morning TV fare just ain't cutting it.

I hope to feel better soon, and put up a decent post.