Most of us - even the most vociferously Amurikan Americans - have incorporated some foreign words or phrases into our vocabulary, whether or not we even realize it. Pizza, for example. It's become a national meal, for gosh sakes, yet it may surprise you to know that the word pizza comes from a foreign country. Italy, to be exact. "Pizza" is short for the Italian word pizzabemakingyoufatta, or as they say in Old Italia, "looka her-a, she gotta butt the size of the moon-a, she must-a been eatin too mucha the pizza pie-a."

Many of our words are a pastiche - which, come to think of it, is another foreign word. The French say it's theirs but their claim is being rigorously disputed by a small town in southwest Missouri named Iche, which insists that it coined the word when giving directions to the next town over: it's past Iche.

The Latins (whoever they are!) gave us all sorts of root words. Snooty know-it-all people are always waxing profound about words that come from some Latin root, and they delight in pointing it out, saying things like, "it might interest you to know, Bob, that the phrase ‘hung like a horse' actually derives from the Latin dickius maximus equines or as it was referred to in the days of Julius Caesar, ‘Julius peckerus bigius.'"

There are regular birthdays, and there are big birthdays, and somebody we all know is about to have a landmark birthday:  Barbie.  Barbie, the fashion icon; Barbie, the girl with a one-inch waist; Barbie, the doll with feet the shape of high heels, is turning 50.  That's right, it's the big 5-0 for Midge's best friend.

Barbie will be a half-century on March 9.  She was "born" at the 1959 New York Toy Fair, the product of Ruth Handler, who happened to be married to the co-founder of Mattel Toy Company.  Ruth gave the world an image of female perfection that has made Mattel - not to mention many therapists - millions of dollars from girls who grow into womanhood obsessed with Barbie's unachievable proportions.

Here it is, the final week of the presidential campaign and I know what you're thinking: is there a single person left in America who hasn't been the subject of some form of candidate outreach? Hockey moms, gun-totin' crazies, undecideds who are driving the rest of us nuts by their indecisiveness, along with independents, liberals, conservatives - everybody has somebody reaching out to them. Or so you think. But you are sadly mistaken. Both campaigns are missing crucial voting blocks that could make or break this election. And since I'm an unabashed Obama supporter, I'm going to direct my startling insights to his top-level advisors. Folks, pay attention. I'm about to lead your guy to victory by pointing out the five untouched voting blocks that could sweep Obama into office.

Ignored voting block number one: English majors.

Forsooth, for too long English majors have been ignored in the demographics of this race. In both the scarlet states and the azure states, as well as those whose colors form an interesting pastiche, a group of literate lads and ladies have been waiting for a candidate to come rapping, gently rapping, at their chamber doors. So the next time that Palin or McCain say something insulting, Obama should fire back with a Shakespearean insult to capture the English major vote. Something like:

GOOD MORNING, FELLOW AMERICANS!!! DANG IT ALL, I AM SO PROUD TO BE AN AMURIKAN. I AM. CUZ WE ARE THE BEST. EVER. IN THE WORLD. AND UNIVERSE. AND COSMOS.

Whew, I am whipped up, amped up, stoked to the gills with patriotic fever from the Republican convention. I’m on a red, white and blue high! GOL DURN, aren't you PROUD to be an AMURIKAN? HUH? AREN'T YOU... Hey, I'm gonna interrupt myself to cheer! I'm gonna give a big ole shout-out to the red, white and blue. I'm gonna break into YOU-ES-A, YOU-ES-A. Yah, baby, get a load of Sarah "Hot Lips" Palin! Beats the hell out of Dick Cheney, don't it?? YOU-ES-A!

Americans love holidays. Look at the Fourth of July. Everyone merrily stocks up on beer and firecrackers, one of the most ill-conceived partnerships imaginable in holiday celebrations. (Drink beer, set off incendiary devices, visit hospital, learn to write with prosthetic fingers.) But while the 4thclaims to be a day that's all about America, we are overlooking a holiday that celebrates what's truly American: our obsession with our bodies, our devotion to our pets (particularly cats in this instance), our love of science (as long as it's gross), and our compulsion to send greeting cards for the most obscure occasions. Yes, I am talking about National Hairball Awareness Day!

This important holiday is on April 27. What?, you're exclaiming, I missed it again? That's because those snobs at Hallmark just can't bring themselves to do what every cat can do (and usually does under the table in the middle of a dinner party)-cough up something to commemorate National Hairball Awareness Day.

My brothers grew up in a shed. A stable, actually. It didn't still have cows and goats in it. It wasn't like they were the baby Jesus, lying in a manger, surrounded by various cud-chewing animals. And speaking of Jesus: along with being holy, did He have no sense of smell? Because a barn would be a mighty odiferous environment to be born in. Maybe only superior, non-pooping brands of animals were allowed in for Jesus' birth. Christmas nativity sets have little ceramic cows and lambs and a hay-filled manger but no piles of itsy-bitsy ceramic manure or teeny-tiny ceramic flies buzzing around the cow's eyes and butts. In real life, giving birth in a barn had to be pretty low on Mary's list of where - I'd - like - to - have - the - Son - of - God locations. I've never heard of a woman in the throes of labor shouting, "Honey, I'd give anything to give birth in a stall right now, preferably one chock-full of livestock!" because talk about your germs. If Mary had been a spoiled yuppie, she would have had that stable hosed down, the animals booted out, and the whole structure doused in disinfectants before any baby came out of her. Needless to say, Christmas would not be celebrated on the 25th because that barn would not have been up to code until at least the 26th or more likely, the morning of the 27th.

The devil is about to get his butt kicked in Poland. Coming soon is the grand opening of Europe’s first center dedicated to performing exorcisms. No more priests making house calls to cast out Satan. From now on, you got a problem with a demon, you check into the exorcism center and let its trained staff do the rest.

I can’t wait to see what the exorcism center will be called. Will it be the big box store of satanic ass-kicking? Exorcisms ‘R Us? Hell Depot? Satan, Lucifer and Beyond? Or will it be named after a sponsoring company, like “Fed Ex Field?” Who gets naming rights for an exorcism center? The Toyota Center for Casting Out Demons? The Bill and Melinda Gates (to Hell)?

The exorcism center is the brainchild of a priest from the town of Szczecin, the Rev. Andrzej Trojanowski. (Maybe after he’s finished ministering to the bedeviled, the good reverend can ask God to cast out a few consonants from the Polish language and welcome in a couple more vowels.) The Rev. is being backed by none other than Lucifer’s Number One Sparring Partner, the Big V. The Vatican itself is giving the center a pontifical thumb’s up.

Are the Japanese stealing America’s inventiveness? For more than a hundred thousand years, America has led the way with its inventions. When Henry T. Ford first realized that our great nation needed a reliable form of transportation, he invented the horse. Then he invented the buggy. Then he smashed the buggy and ran over the horse with an SUV, which he also invented and then sold to overseas production companies. And that, my friend, is just one example of American ingenuity.

It was an American who invented the Great Lakes, which used to be just so-so lakes.

It was an American who cracked the genetic code of Starbucks and cloned the first one in a laboratory which, unfortunately, did not have proper security fencing. This allowed the infant Starbucks (“Li’l Bucky”) to escape and colonize America, resulting in Starbucks popping up in the middle of dinner parties, in airplane bathrooms, or on street corners where they now hang out in menacing groups intimidating pedestrians into buying skinny, no-whip frappaccinos even when they don’t want one.

Everybody talks about how coddled today's children are. Even parents complain about how other kids are nothing but sniveling brats-while their own dear offspring whine that their Play Station Game Boy X Box I Pod Cell Phone Nuclear Trigger Device toy is so booorrrrriiiinnnngggg.

There are kids with perfectly straight teeth who are getting braces. I don't know why, maybe it's a preventive thing. In the unlikely event that junior's upper bicuspid suddenly decides to grow sideways, that brace will be there, sort of like a mouth policeman patrolling the teeth beat.

I had braces as a kid but that's because my dentist looked at my teeth and said, "Sweet Mother of God, what's the matter with this kid?" Evidently, I'd had the unfortunate habit of sucking my thumb upside down-that is to say, my thumb was upside down, not my body. My thumb hooked itself on my lower teeth and every night as I snoozed away, the weight of it pulled my lower jaw into a protruding under-bite typically found on an English bulldog. Since I had rather short legs as well, the overall resemblance to a pugnacious, squatty canine prompted my parents to have sixteen pounds of silver soddered onto my teeth. I also had rubber bands zig-zagging across the back of my mouth, so every time I laughed, one would break with a loud "snap," which stung like a bee and caused everyone within hearing distance to murmur, what the hell is in that kid's mouth? It goes without saying that the phrase "what a cute little girl!" was not often addressed to me.