The Ten Endowments (Part 1 of 2)

1. BEING BORN A CAT
How fortunate, rubbing my head or the side of my chin against the wastebasket enemy combatant, depositing an odor left in passing, by means of which I might be traced. Using the glands on my forehead and around my mouth and chin is much more precious than swallowing diamonds equaling the number of atoms of this earth.

2. BEING BORN IN AN APARTMENT WHERE THERE ARE TEACHINGS
Outside the window, squirrels squat their fetid rumps in the bole of the Mayakovsky Tree. I huddle under the handsomest delirious leaf in the Southwest Forest of the living room. I broke a stained glass window last month.

3. BEING BORN WITH PERFECT ORGANS
That hairball right outside their bedroom door is an entangled pattern of behavior or a mess of bureaucratic procedure that discourages originality and stifles imagination. Consequently, the hairball underneath Tony's desk is released from the nightmare realm -- and war and peace escape through the same portal entering the real world. Watch out: next to the couch is a pressure-cooked accumulation of ingested hair that forms into a ball within the digestive tract.


4. BEING BORN FREE OF THE FIVE EXTREME ACTIONS
In his January 25, 2002, memorandum to the President of the War on Terror, Alberto Gonzales wrote: "The argument that the U.S. has never determined that the standards of the Geneva Convention did not apply is incorrect. First, this is a new type of warfare that requires a new approach in our actions towards captured terrorists."

He licked his right haunch, adding, "Second, in response to the argument that we should decide to apply the Geneva Conventions to the Taliban in order to encourage other countries to treat captured U.S. military personnel in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, it should be noted that the White House's policy of providing humane treatment to enemy detainees gives us the credibility to insist on like treatment for our soldiers. Thirdly, we coerce cooperation with other nations by reassuring them that we fully support the Geneva Conventions where they are applicable and by acknowledging that in this conflict the U.S. continues to respect other recognized standards."

Alberto Gonzales licked his egregious right hand and washed his forehead.

"Fourthly," he said, "the U.S. will continue to be constrained by its commitment to treat the detainees humanely while waterboarding them."

He added, "The fifth, and final, reason why the Geneva Conventions do not apply is that, of course, any argument based on the ethos of military culture fails to recognize that our military remain bound to apply the principles of the Geneva Conventions because that is what you, as President of the War on Terror, have directed them to do."

5. BEING BORN HAVING CONFIDENCE IN AND DEVOTION TO THE TEACHINGS
Mary finds herself ordering paper clips and a pair of tweezers at work and demands that Lou give her more responsibility. He obliges and assigns Mary her first task: fire Ed the sportscaster and find a replacement. Georgette is distraught when she catches Ted with another woman and makes plans to join a convent. "I, too, am an angel," Georgette says. "I brace myself against my ribs!"