George W. KAKA

Dateline Germany, January 2005. Police in the sleepy hamlet of Bayreuth are in a bit of a pickle. Someone -- or something -- is jamming miniature toothpick flag portraits of U.S. President George W Bush into piles of dog shit on sidewalks, public parks, and pedestrian thoroughfares. Josef Oettl, parks administrator for Bayreuth, said: "This has been going on for about a year now, and there must be 2,000 to 3,000 piles of excrement that have been claimed during that time."



The dog-shit-on-a-stick motif was originally thought to be some sort of protest against the US-led invasion of Iraq. When the structures survived for several consecutive seasons (weathering rain, snow, and extreme temperatures in all directions) the flags were thought to be a protest against Bush's campaign for re-election.

In 2006, the dog shit Bush parade is still going strong. Police say they are completely baffled as to who might be responsible.

"We have sent out extra patrols to try to catch whoever is doing this in the act," said police spokesman Reiner Kuechler. "But frankly, we don't know what we would do if we caught them red handed."



Legal experts claim there's no law against using dog shit as a flag stand, although Federal legal analysts warn the Constitution is vague on the issue. One possible source of all the dog shit flags has been identified only as the makeyouthink online entity, which offers downloadable PDF templates for printing, folding, and concealing in a backpack.

To be sure, dog shit is annoying and problematic in every country -- but is it really subject matter capable of depositing a huge, flaming bag of controversy on the entire world's doorstep?