Out of the old email bag comes another shot at dividing the ol’ United States into those who would lead the country, and those who despise them. Here’s an abridged version, since it runs a bit long:

Anthropomorphic Nouns

I thought this might be boring, but stick with it.  You’ll love the ending.

We are all familiar with  a

Herd of cows,

A Flock of chickens,

[omitted]

Now consider a group of Baboons.
Baboons are the loudest, most dangerous, most
obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least
intelligent of all primates.
And what is the proper collective noun for a
group of baboons?
Believe it or not… A Congress!
(Note: I hadn’t heard that before, so I looked it up. It is correct)

A CONGRESS OF BABOONS!

That pretty much explains the things that come out of Washington ! 

You just can’t  make this stuff up.

Ummmm…. except you just did. I went looking to see if a group of Baboons were a Congress and didn’t find anything in Wikipedia. A wider search yielded up the fact that this email has actually been analyzed and debunked. PolitiFact is on the case:

Two places where we did find it were sources in which virtually anybody could insert a definition on a whim: Wikipedia and UrbanDictionary.com. (In the Urban Dictionary, someone added the definition on Sept. 3, 2011, in response to the e-mail.)

And it’s no longer present in Wikipedia.

So we turned to Orin Hargraves, a freelance lexicographer and president of the Dictionary Society of North America.

The names for collections of animals are called “terms of venery,” and Hargraves said the best reference source for them is the 1968 book “An Exaltation of Larks” by James Lipton, host of “Inside the Actors Studio.”

The first part of the book, which examines real terms, has no reference to baboons. Only in the section that includes whimsical terms that Lipton coined or uncovered is there any reference to the primates. “A rumpus of baboons” is listed right next to “a buffoonery of orangutans.” (One of our favorites: “a prickle of porcupines.”)

For those who love useless bits of trivia:

Shirley Strum is at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project in Nairobi,Kenya. Larissa Swedell is at Queens College of the City University of New York and studies the primates in Ethiopia and South Africa.

Both said the correct term for a group of baboons is a “troop.”

They also note baboons are actually quite bright.

I suppose the next outstanding question is Why didn’t I just direct my correspondent’s attention to the above article?

Here’s the thing: It’s necessary to scrutinize the activities of our individual delegates to the federal government, to evaluate their performance, and to recognize self-interested and/or disinterested behavior. It’s necessary to perform this duty in a thoughtful and honest manner which will yield praise for exemplary service by such members, for which names such as Lugar and Kerry come to mind, and condemnation for such members as Weiner and those who’ve been convicted of corruption.

This mail is not that scrutiny.

This is mail designed to inculcate a general disdain and contempt for one of the most important legislative bodies on the planet. For those Americans who consider themselves patriotic, this mail is an insult, because the structure of our government is one of our strongest safeguards.

Worse yet, it’s a subtle call to treason. For all that Congress often moves at a snail’s pace, it’s better a snail than a Ferrari that races off a cliff. And if it seems like Congress isn’t promoting your favorite business’ interest, my reader would do well to remember that government defends that which cannot defend itself, such as the poor and the environment, the defrauded consumer and the lake shore inhabitant discovering the lake is about to be polluted by industry. Industry rarely needs defense; it needs restraint.

So when I read an email like this, I’m sensitive to how it brings government into general disdain. I’m aware of how this may discourage a person, who may be competent to an elective or judicial post, from pursuing that post – leaving it vulnerable to the ideologically extreme, the avaricious, the dishonorable.

We’ve been seeing that of late.

Spread the word.