It struck me again today, from some flyer I noticed lying around, how peculiar it is that our two major political parties are represented by (1) a donkey and (2) an elephant. There are reasons, I suspect, that one never hears of the University of X Donkeys playing the Y State Elephants on Saturday afternoons -- they're just two of the oddest damn animals around, and wouldn't seem, at first glace, to be portraying the kind of virtues one looks for in a political party. I think the portrayals capture, in a small way to be sure, some of the American dislike and distruct of politics, politicians, and political parties.