Grover

1. On Sesame Street, Grover is (of course!) the furry little blue guy who sticks in my memory as the sympathetic one. Not that any of Sesame Street's characters are un-sympathetic--except Oscar, obviously--but Grover and Grover's songs stand out as being about feelings.
Right now, I am feeling sad. I am saddened by the sheer enormity of crassness in the world. Perfectly lovely people are marred by unlovely language. Profanity is unlovely. It belies those who would otherwise be beautiful ladies or mannerly gentlemen. The insertion of obscenity changes a neutral image to a tough, unkind one, a genteel image into that of a mushroom. (Mushroom? Did I say Mushroom? I think I mean. . .well, Mushroom. Or ragtag. Yes, Rags. The ragged remains of genteel. Don't ask how that correlates to Mushroom.)
The short version? Profanity makes me cringe. Cringing makes me sad. Enormously sad. Grover would sing a sad song right about now.

2. In American history, Grover (Cleveland) was the President of the United States during a devastating drought in Texas. (I learned this in a National Review Online article this week. . .keep reading.) He was savvy enough to cast down a bill that would have appropriated federal dollars for farmers' relief, providing them with seed for the next year's crop. He held firm that the role of government must be a limited one, that the "people support the government," and the government should not "support the people." In the wake of Katrina, Rita, and every other natural (or not) disaster, where is Grover now?

Three cheers for Grover.