Saturday, August 25, 2007  D.C. Cluck-U Chicken Mural  Does the
absurdity of this mural tell us anything about our disturbed
national zeitgeist?  In the shadow of our hallowed national
temples, a collegiate chicken-jock—the mascot of the Cluck-U
chain of fried chicken restaurants—dangles a chicken leg as an
inducement to cross the finish line. (Cluck-U has dozens of
outlets across the mid-Atlantic and, strangely, one in Lebanon.
Yes, Lebanon. The country.)  The competitors—a wildly out-of-
scale elephant and a donkey—are herbivores, yet they sprint like
mad for the meat, kicking up political party-coded smoke as they
go. True, the puffs of smoke are incorrectly colored. Blue for
the G.O.P. and red for the Dems? This lapse is easily the least
objectionable thing about the mural. (The most objectionable?
You have to ask? Who put the chicken up to this? Does someone
have dirt on him? Is this part of some insider politics, a
little quid pro quo? Surely, the chicken didn't think of
offering up a chicken leg to the