Like all good Americans, I spent my day thinking about Barack Obama’s birth certificate. For those of you who would like to play along at home, the rules of the game are as follows: Some say that Obama’s birth certificate from Hawaii, officially known as a “Certification of Live Birth,” is a fake, because they just know that Obama was born outside the country. Hence, he is not a “natural-born citizen,” and is ineligible to serve as President. This is especially vexatious to those Republicans who, like Macbeth, fear no natural-born man. The horror with which they conjecture — perhaps Obama was in Kenya from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d — is totally understandable.

Members of the US House of Representatives and several state legislatures are taking action, and demanding laws requiring future presidential candidates to submit their real birth certificates (no fakes allowed) before their names can be put on the ballot. A lot of people are taking offense at this idea, although it strikes me as perfectly harmless. Indeed, the fact that such a law isn’t already on the books is a little surprising.

We always hear that bureaucracy is the tape that holds the government together. Every form at the DMV has a little box for your middle initial, it’s impossible to replace your Social Security Card without a birth certificate, and don’t even think about trying to use your handgun license as a form of primary ID. And if we weren’t required to sign on the dotted line, swearing that the above information is true, society might fall apart altogether.

And yet at the highest level, they seem to go without paperwork altogether. When I heard about the bill under consideration to compel Obama to submit his birth certificate for cursory analysis by the Missouri state legislature in 2012, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one thinking, “Man — Presidents have it easy.”

I’m supposed to believe that at no point during his historic campaign did Obama have to paperclip a photocopy of his birth certificate to a ballot access application. He didn’t have to bring a utility bill addressed to him in Chicago to verify his current address. And if he has any felony convictions in his past, I bet he didn’t have to admit them on a sheet of paper.

I can’t help but wonder whether the upper tiers of government all share this disdain for the paperwork that nourishes them. When the House and Senate pass a bill, do they have to ink up the “PASSED” stamp to make it official? Or do they just expect the American people to take their word for it? When the president signs legislation, does he really need to sign it at all? Does he need to sign white, pink and canary copies, and initial each page? If his signature doesn’t match the ones on his canceled checks, are we, the American People, allowed to call him and note that, “there’s been some unusual activity in your branch of government, and would you verify that you approved these recent bills?”

A wise man once said that when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. I can only assume that the same spirit that animated Richard Nixon informs elected officials’ approach to paperwork. If Congress says they’ve passed a bill, or if Obama and his family say he was born in America, what pencil-pusher is going to call such important people on such petty details?

Now we know. That’s why I think it’s helpful to look at the “birthers,” as they are known, as the political wing of the bureaucracy. This obsession with proper documents and formalities has manifested before, in the “tax protestors” who deny that the Sixteenth Amendment was ever ratified. We are told, for instance that “a number of states returned uncertified, unsigned, and/or unsealed copies [of the amendment], and did not rectify their negligence even after being reminded and warned by [Secretary of State] Knox.”

“With carelessness like that,” I can hear the birthers fume, “you’d be lucky to get a fishing license.”

Surprised
Bothered
Bothered that I was surprised

At the grocery store in my neighborhood — at the grocery store that isn’t Kosher, even — it is impossible to find a hot dog that will admit to containing pork. They’re either “all beef” or “beef and poultry and this and that” or simply “no pork”. Now, I understand that even if they’re not so religious that they demand Kosher-certified hot dogs, the number of people in New York City who abjure pork is greater than the number of people who require it. But there’s already a very popular brand of hot dog (Kosher certified even! They answer to a higher authority) for people who want to avoid pork. Is there any reason for every other hot dog company, even those without a brand to disgrace, to follow suit?

Hot dogs, like most sausages, like bratwurst and liverwurst and kielbasa, are traditionally made out of pork. And the local grocery stores sell other kinds of sausage. And while our bratwursts remain pork, our hot dogs have turned to beef. This isn’t just a New York thing either. Google returns 61,500 results for “all beef hot dog” and only 3,800 for “all pork hot dog”.

I know for a fact that pork is cheaper than beef. (although I couldn’t say for sure whether Grade F pork is cheaper than Grade F beef it seems likely.) And while hot dog makers may be evil, they are not insane. It must be that consumers prefer beef hot dogs. Why?

The only explanation I can imagine is that people think pork is icky (I don’t know why, but they do, right?) and that people think hot dogs are icky. Each of these factors alone is not enough to keep people from buying pork or hot dogs, but when they’re combined, the product is simply too loathsome for the buyer to contemplate. Does that sound right?

I bought a gallon of milk today from the bad grocery store, and when I went to try it, I found flecks of very dry cheese-like material on the cap. Inside, the milk is as sweet and thin as ever, but it has a real flavor of parmesan cheese, which I assume is butyric acid or diacetyl, and I suppose that something has happened to the butterfat. It certainly doesn’t taste spoiled in any ordinary way, like the casein has broken down — just very very savory.

I sometimes eat butter that’s been sitting out for days and days, and I like that Continental tang, but I have to admit that a gallon of liquid parmesan might be too delicious even for me. But I also feel bad pouring so much of this rare and potentially valuable liquid down the drain. If anybody wants some cultured milk, let me know. We can do a deal.

Vivus Inc., whose stock prices, reputation and business were riding on this new drug, named it Qnexa, a name that doesn’t even approach hailing distance of a word, yet manages to suggest both “anorexia” and a winning move in Scrabble. Naturally, Vivus doesn’t offer any documentation on how to pronounce this non-word, and now that it’s set to join Fen-phen in the dustbin of pharmaceuticals, I don’t suppose they’ll ever bother.

But this suggests a real failure in marketing. Everyone knows that naming a drug is important for marketing to consumers. It’s well known in the food industry that people eat with their eyes — but they dope with their ears. Nobody would smoke crack if it were called “fart”, while “Viagra” is a poem unto itself. Vivus may have thought they could iron out their horrible nomenclature after it got approved, but perhaps they forgot that FDA regulators are people too; FDA regulators consider marketing as much as the rest of us. Indeed, more so. If you’re paid to think and write about medication all day, day in and day out, surely the lousy aesthetic standards in the drug industry will come to gall you. How else can you strike back?

In other words, if you wouldn’t take a pill called Qnexa, why would you approve a pill called Qnexa?

Pac Man is fun, although Google Pac Man leaves a little to be desired, but what I really want to celebrate here is the demise of “I’m Feeling Lucky”. In order to make room for the button that allows you to begin a round of Pac Man, Google replaced the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button with an “Insert Coin” button.

I’m sure it will be back soon enough — at least until Google Ms. Pac Man comes out — but let’s all appreciate the respite. Google has a spartan interface: Logo, toolbar, and search button. I don’t know why they thought it was necessary to include a special search option for people who want the first result available, without the necessity of *looking*. Scrolling through a half a page of results isn’t very taxing, and it’s always better to get some context for your search. The best explanation I can find is that it “saves time and clicking.” Does anybody ever feel that lucky?