*Take

Give me 

your tired, 

your poor, 

Your huddled masses 

yearning to breathe free, 

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 

Send these, 

the homeless, 

tempest-tossed 

 to me, 

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

***

And how's that working out, now?

J

Greatness

Bumped up from Feb 2, 06. Long long ago.

_____

Truth matters. So when we find our heroes, we cannot be surprised to find that they are human. Our admiration must rest on something other than the beguiling semblance of virtue. And even if they seem to succeed – if we look out on the proud towers of our accomplishment, and proudfully declaim, “Look on my works ye mighty, and despair” – how are we to know but that the bare and boundless, the lone and level sands will soon sweep over every success achieved or hoped for?

Robert E. Lee was a man of sterling character. Higher praise is rare, than what was said of him: he was what he seemed to be. So highly was he admired that at the start of the Civil War Lincoln offered him command of the Union Army. But Lee was a man of powerful loyalty to his native state, and set his allegiance accordingly. The personal turmoil and sacrifice his decision entailed can only have been monumental.

Saladin united the Moslem world to resist the Crusaders. He is counted today as the nonpareil and inspiration of the chivalry that defines for us the highest aspects of Medieval Civilization. Hospitable, merciful, magnanimous.

But when Saladin captured Jerusalem, his original plan was to slaughter all the Christians. Only at the threat of the Christian defender Balian of Ibelin - to retaliate by destroying the city and killing all its Moslems - did Saladin countermand his order. Instead, he merely enslaved those Christians who could not ransom their freedom. When he captured Hattin in 1187, Saladin commanded that every last one of the Christian defenders be beheaded. The scholars and holy men of his retinue each begged to whet his sword on a Christian neck, and Saladin magnanimously assented. His secretary describes how the “unbelievers showed black despair” during the executions, while Saladin reclined on his dais, his face bright with joy.

And Bobby Lee? He does indeed seem to have been what he seemed to be. No fault can easily be found in loyalty to your home – his loyalty doesn’t require a failure of judgment or of values. But how loyalty is expressed is another matter. For all that Virginia was his homeland, it was the Slave Power. Some 640,000 Americans have been killed in all other wars combined, some 620,000 killed in that bloodiest Civil War. Without Lee at the head of the Confederate Army the Civil War would have ended years sooner. What large fraction of those deaths, then, might we lay in his defense of slavery at the feet of Robert E. Lee and his noble, loyal character?

Bolivar, the great liberator of South America, looked back and summed up his life. “I have plowed the sea.” Goethe - perhaps the greatest of German poets, and master of the science, the mysteries, of optics - cried out as he lay in bed, “More light!” – then he died. Accounts vary, and this would be a minority report, but Lincoln’s last words are said by some to have been of his desire to travel to the Holy Land, once his term was over. We shall walk the sacred paths of our Lord, he said. We shall go up to Jeru…

Jesus on the cross cried out, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” Didn’t he know?

We can find futility and despair where ever we look. Human virtues have value in themselves. But we are judged, in some sense, and rightly, not on our intentions but our effect. If we serve evil righteously, what of that? If we yield to a taste for blood, what then? If the great purpose of our lives, or the intimate strivings, fail, where then do we find value? If we stumble so near the finish line, how will we be judged?

Since truth matters, we may find an excuse in sincerity only to a limited degree. After that we find that relativity shatters like waves on the breakers. Because there are, also, absolutes. Slavery is wrong, and although good men have had to make an accommodation with it, in the face of the reality of their powerlessness, still there are times in history when a clear choice is offered. It is at such times that accommodations amount to nothing but cowardice, or worse.

There is a higher virtue than loyalty. I can’t think of the word for it, but it has to do with being right - something about an allegiance to truth. So with slavery, and chivalry, and politics and religion and abortion and sexual conduct and Iraq and Iran. Opinion is a function of faith, and is congruent with fact only by a smiling fortune. This is why in matters of solemn importance, the highest degree of diligence must be employed, by each of us, to discover what is true and bind our allegiance to it. Otherwise we are soldiers fighting for slavery rather than freedom, or preachers of vice instead of virtue, or defenders of what is indefensible.

But if we strive for what is truly right, and fail, still we have undone to some degree the curse laid upon creation in Eden. We cannot rescind the law of entropy, but we can fight for order and intelligence in our own small corner of the world. More than this can no man rightly hope for. Mighty towers will fall, their only trace found as dust and wind. To rule in the world is to fail. A man's only kingdom is his own heart.


J

A Commonplace Book

I don't suppose I have anything terribly interesting to say about The Brethren's recent pronouncement as to whether or not Americans have the right to bear arms. Turns out that they're gonna let us, at least for a while longer. Whew. Funny sort of how it's DC that instigated this latest crisis. The seat of governance, with its crack addict mayor and its zero tolerance for self defense. Bizarroland.

But there's one idea that struck me. The Bill of Rights. Isn't it supposed to, well, not grant rights, but spell out the explicit fact that we have them, certain unalienable rights? How is it then that the Second Amendment could possibly, could conceivably be used to limit our rights? Doesn't that sound absolutely insane? The Second Amendment is somehow interpreted by some of the Just-Us-es to mean that individuals do not have the right to bear arms? That right, of self-protection, derives from some permission of the state? It is a corporate right, depending on the existence of a well regulated militia? Because the Founding Fathers were syndicalists? who had a profound distrust of independence and self-sufficiency?

They sometimes come right out and say it. They don't believe in original intent. The Constitution is a living breathing penumbric thing, like a giant gasbag or hotair balloon or phagocytic amoeba, that expands and contracts according to the momentary digestive state of the ex-lawyer who happens to be squatting over the bench. It doesn't mean anything, it's just a guide book, like where to find a good meal, if you happen to crave, say, some Chicken Kiev.

Is that what the Constitution is? -- a recipe book that lets you whip up anything your palate fancies? Today abortion, tomorrow no guns? Funny. I took it for something more. Not just a scrapbook of carelessly gathered suggestions, a sort of Hints from Heloise that you might line the birdcage with, or frame, or whatever, just depending on the mood of the day. That's what living and breathing must be, they assure us; it means everything, they assure us and reassure us, all the while of course nodding sententiously and affirming that the Constitution is a Very Good Thing -- which it is, but it means Many Things to Many People, as has been proven decisively in these pages. But here, allow me to excerpt the salient passage of Justice Kennedy's opinion:

The Constitution means many things to many people. It is a very good thing. To some, it seems bad. To others it seems good. It means many things. Many people have different ideas about it. Some think it is good. Others think it is bad. It means many things. People like it, while other people do not. The different ideas that many people have about it mean many things to them. There are many opinions. Many people have opinions about this. It is a very good thing.

This is echoed by Souter, who wrote in eerily similar prose:

Gun control means many things to many people. It is a very good thing. To some, it seems bad. To others it seems good. It means many things. Many people have different ideas about it. Some think it is good. Others think it is bad. It means many things. People like it, while other people do not. The different ideas that many people have about it mean many things to them. There are many opinions. Many people have opinions about this. It is a very good thing.

So it's a good thing that the Constitution includes provisions whereby gun ownership is so clearly forbidden: unless there's a militia, which there isn't, there can be no guns. After all, isn't that what a Bill of Rights is for? To limit freedom? I don't know what's wrong with that tiny conservative majority on the court. Don't they get it? It's like that First Amendment, which is all about limiting the power of religious people, and excluding them from any influence in government. Separation of Church and State, dude -- it's spelled out right there, in those very Constitutional words. Can't your read? And the free press -- don't you see? The press is a group! The Constitution is all about groups, not individuals. Don't you get it? Just go down the list. You will find that the Constitution abhors the individual and exalts the village. Duh.

I can't wait till Obama makes those court appointments. It's time we moved back to a simpler way of doing things, a tribal way, with communal firepits that burn low-greenhouse-gas-emitting animal and human waste products, and where we can burn off all those carbs by hauling water in leather bags and clay pots. What's old is new again. My vision is almost perfect in its harmony. How can you tell? Cuz guns just don't fit into that idyllic tableau, now, do they.

We won't even need writing. Constitution? What's that? We'll just make it up as we go.


J

Banner

Dang. They missed it - and just by one little vote. The Senate, on that Constitutional amendment we so desperately need. And just in time for the good ol’ 4^th of July. What amendment? Why, the important one. What? – a change in the anchor-baby loophole, where illegals sneak across our border to have their babies, which are then US citizens? No, not that amendment, silly. A sensible and necessary one. Just like Prohibition was. What this country needs, aside from a good nickel cigar (so I have been reliably informed), is a ban on flag burning. American flag burning. Maybe I’m not being clear. A ban on the burning of the flag of the United States of America.

It is true that every other flag is protected, somehow, from burning. If I burn a Mexican flag or the gay pride flag or a cross, that’s racism and hate speech and ethnic intimidation and inciting to riot and a bunch of other stuff. But so far, for some reason, our grand black-robed dragomen of the law have exempted the US flag from the protection afforded all these other symbols. Something to do with free speech or something. One of those older amendments. I guess nobody feels intimidated or outraged when the US flag is burned.

All this is true. But you might discern, from my sarcastic tone, that I’m not fully in accord with this movement. It is my belief that we do not race about amending the Constitution because someone’s feelings might otherwise be hurt. The law does not recognize the concept of fighting words. I, however, do. And some stringy-haired punk who thinks it would be a hoot to burn the flag as a sign of his disrespect may very well get his lights punched out. A trial would rightly follow – we must preserves the forms of law, after all – and the accused lights-punch-outer would be acquitted ... if I were on the jury. But not everyone is me, so perhaps the patriot would be convicted. Patriotism has a price. Otherwise it’s jingoism. So protecting the flag is a gamble.

Does the flag need protecting? I am of two minds. We react with outrage not at the burning, but at the disrespect for something that deserves respect. But the burner feels disrespect, and shows it thus. Or he’s just a petty provocateur – an empty fool who’s taken time out from his pot-smoking and masturbating to try to make people angry. What does flag-burning really stand for? Disrespect. As I see it, there is some latitude, in showing disrespect. There may come a time when I wish to display my emotion through street theatre, by burning some symbol. I’d like to think I’d be able to do that. It works both ways.

The flag is as sacred a secular symbol as we have. It is a sort of national monument in cloth – mass produced, in China mostly, but always ours, and dear to us. It is to be honored and protected, because it stands for something noble and worthy. In the face of ill-breeding, or profound ingratitude, or impotent alien mob blustering, however, we must ask ourselves how much power we will choose to give these characters. Yes, it requires a certain emotional distance – a certain sense of self-assurance and irony. But the alternative is to give the whip to the clowns, that they may scourge us. This will not stand.

If we ban flag burning, more flags will be burned. Every Islamist will be issued on a daily basis his American flag, that he may perform the new Islamist ritual – the Sixth Pillar of Islamism – of US flag burning. And how they will delight in our supposed discomfiture. And oh the Lefty martyrs – how they will shudder with an agony of delight as they put the Bic to the banner - they might almost achieve an erection – it’s so forbidden!

Let’s ignore the impracticalities of such an amendment. Burning a flag with fifty-one stars. Burning a flag with eleven stripes. Burning a flag with altered proportions. Burning a red, egg shell, and blue flag. This would be the out, for the cowards who delight in being outrageous but would not be unduly inconvenience by the exigencies of law enforcement. We’ll ignore all this. As we might ignore them – the powerless protesters who vent their frustration like incendiary mimes – displaying their angers, their rages, as if we ought to be intimidated by such play acting. Sometimes we have to ignore the naughty children who say booger and ­peepee and then giggle at how daring and bad they are. Sometimes we have to ignore the angry shouting of children, who have no maturity to aid them in tempering their conduct with patience and courtesy. Sometimes we have to wait, that the child might learn a larger lesson, in a more appropriate way.

Most of all, I think, is that we have to be the masters of our own emotions, and in the face of rudeness, and stupidity, and vulgarity, sometimes we have to reframe the issue not in terms of our feelings verses their feelings – Oh, he thinks he’s mad? I’ll show him what mad is! - but rather step back, and feel sad for their weakness, and glad that we have been so blessed. Not everything is a game. It’s not always about keeping score – he’s been insulting … let’s get him! Sometimes it’s about character. And character understands restraint. The flag stands for the American spirit. And the American spirit is what we make it. The pride that stirs in us when we see that heroic emblem waving against the blue of the sky, is the pride we feel in ourselves. Pride has its cost, though. We must be worthy of it. And it starts with self-control.

Self-control. Sort of the opposite of gay pride. Respect - sort of the opposite of being a scofflaw. Courtesy - a virtue rightly extended even to those who display ignorance and ingratitude.

And is there no more pressing issue confronting this nation, than the four instances this year of flag burning?

J

The God of This World

Robert Kagan writes of a panel discussion he participated in, the theme of which was civil unrest and ‘failed states.’ He quickly noticed that the panelists had a one-size-fits-all solution: blame America. Oh, the many bitter springs that feed the roots of this poisonous tree: Gaulic theoreticians nonplused since the 1990s at the idea, the very idea of an American ‘hyperpower’ - the Pakistanis still in a rage over US support in the ’70s and '80s for some dictator general named Mohammed al-Blahblahblah or something - African Marxists still in a lather about our policy in the 1960s and '70s - ex-guerrillistas plotting their revolutions agains a century of el norte americano imperialism - and of course, of course “the Arab activists still angry about 1948. At a conference in the Middle East a few months ago," writes Kagan, "I heard a moderate Arab scholar complaining bitterly about how American policy had alienated the Arab peoples in recent years. A former Clinton official sitting next to him was nodding vigorously but then suddenly stopped when the Arab scholar made clear that by ‘recent years’ he meant ever since 1967.” Zing! Why, you’d almost think we had colonies, or something - like the French.

But of course there is a missing decade from this dishonor role of American perfidy – the current one. And the whole world sings a close-harmony chorus about Iraq. The kleptocracies hate us because they fear they’re on the list. The soft-bellied drool-lickers envy our wide shoulders and steady eye. That’s how I see it. You disagree? I dismiss you as an etioted eloi. Ad hominem, you whine? Your mother wears army boots. Salvation Army boots. Acquired at a flea market from pot smoking hippies – she traded her Birkenstocks – her lesbian Tango partner kept stepping on her toes.

Ahem.

During the discussion, “When the head of the NGO paused from gnashing his teeth at American policy to suggest that perhaps the United States was not to blame for the genocide in Rwanda, the African dictator's son argued that it was, because it had failed to intervene.” Well, that hardly seems fair. We misuse the power that we have too much of, but we’d better use it or we’re to blame. Sounds like the world is our ex-wife. It boils down to this: “The United States was to blame both for the suffering it caused and the suffering it did not alleviate.” And that is the heart of the matter. To the it-can’t-be-us crowd, America is God.

Well, that’s my problem too. I look at the horror of the world and understand that whatever presiding intelligence there is seems to have fallen asleep on the job. This seems irresponsible to me. Things should be better. The atheist looks at the greatest power on earth and supposes all failings devolve ultimately upon it. The unrestful theist looks to God for solace, and receives the reference librarian’s answer, of verses about promises. What, then? Where is peace to be found, for the world or the man?

The danger of humility is that it can degenerate into indolence. Righteousness requires humility, but it is so close to pride that something about eyes of needles comes to mind. I come back, again, to Job. His virtue was his sin. How can we find peace in such a universe? The answer is too Zen to be true, but it is. Give up. Everything we hope for is not coming, or if it is, it comes on a schedule not of our making. We desire justice. While we’re waiting, we just have to remember to keep breathing. When our allotted number of heartbeats is ticked off, we pass on and no longer desire justice.

How can we win, in such a universe? Well, life is a team sport. And the team has a star, upon whom everything depends. And that star isn’t me.

I suppose the answer is that it is all just a game. Humility, then.

J

Why We Like John Wayne

It isn't the cowboy hat. That's just required by the scenery. It isn't some mere and instant recourse to violence. That's what circumstances might demand. It isn't just a willingness to face risk. That makes for good storytelling, but we like John Wayne regardless of the story. It's the certainty.

Certainty is a masculine quality. Let's take care of business. Of course there are risks. What if I'm wrong! But dithering is just as wrong. It turns out that even wrong decisions average out to be less damaging than no decision at all. It boils down to the fact that sometimes something must be done.

Carter is the negative example. I won't rehearse his sundry failures. Enough to notice that he did nothing about Iran, and that's just too bad for us now, isn't it. So with Bush: even if invading Iraq was the wrong thing to do, it's the right thing to do. When all the doors have a tiger behind them, it hardly matters which you open. It becomes a matter of how angry and hungry the tiger will be when it finally gets loose. False analogy, you object? Iran.

Of course, even John Wayne wasn't really John Wayne. Sometimes he was Marion Morrison. There are hardly any really tough guys. And if they're tough, they may not be all that bright. And even if they're bright, there's no guarantee that they're right. But we don't demand perfection. Being tough is a virtue only when toughness is called for.

Some years ago I had the misfortune of accidentally reading one of the worst books ever written. Real Boys, by Wllm. Pollack. Godawful. I'm angry with you for even reminding me of it. I've blotted most of it from my memory, but the upshot was that boys should be more like girls. (So two pollacks go into a bar. But they don't do anything but talk about their feelings. Then they start kissing.) Is that unfair? The idea that tenderness is important is self-evident. No thoughtful person will confuse my bloody, bold and resolute encomium for a universal formula. But after the talking's done?

When my wonderful son was very little, I made sure to help him identify his feelings. "You're pretty angry right now, aren't you." "Yes, I'm very, very angry." "Well that's okay. You go ahead and be angry for a while, and then if you want to talk to me you just let me know." Because that's not always such an easy thing for us guys. But another thing I did with him was to remind him, when he could hear it, that these were, after all, only feelings. They matter the way ice cream matters (or whatever - fill in the blank). Not nutrition, but pleasurable, and necessary, frankly, not for physical but overall health. We need frivolous sweetness, now and then.

So it comes down, again, to wisdom. And that means sometimes soft, and sometimes hard. It also means that we do indeed choose between them. We decide. Certainly we may be wrong, and the consequences can be disastrous. But the equation does not include a symbol for regret - which is not a constant, but at most a fleeting term that must be nullified for the equation to balance.

I suppose that's why math is such a pleasing discipline. The certainty.



J

Cassandra

She was a princess of doomed Troy, possessed of the gift of prophecy. She saw through the ruse of the Trojan Horse, foretold the fall of her city, foresaw the murder of her paramour Agamemnon and saw with it her own death. But she was thought mad, and confined, and indeed was driven mad for a time. She possessed an onerous gift, of prophecy that would never be believed. A gift that is a curse. How … how Greek. What god had she offended to be so burdened? Bright Apollo, whose love changed into hatred when she did not match it. Dangerous thing, to be loved by a god.

Western Civilization dates from the fall of Troy. From there, under the black pall of burning towers, refugees scattered westward and became Etruscans and Latins, who would later work a belated revenge upon the Achaeans by subsuming the Greeks into Rome. Of course, the Byzantines returned the favor – but there is no profit in such score-keeping. After long enough, the family ties get so knotted that they should all just consider themselves siblings.

So when some half-informed demi-theorists suppose they possess the Key to History, we may smile at their earnestness, if their power for harm is slight. The order they think they find is only the cycle of waves rolling across the surface of some unsounded sea. To hear Islamists complain about Crusades finished two score generations ago is almost amusing, save that their fulminations are energized by oil and explosives. Likewise, to learn of the cult of Aztlan separatists - who suppose there is a “Chicano” blood claim on the American southwest - would make us shake our heads with a wry snort, except that their cause is rising on the swell of unbounded illegal immigration.

There is no stupid idea that cannot become dangerous. Marxism. The State will just whither away? When has that ever happened. But this philosophy dominated a fair part of the globe for a fair part of a century. Truth has no more power in the world than lies. There are more fools than wisemen. And prophets, if there are any prophets, are honored neither in their own country, nor elsewhere. Hardly ever.

The most we might hope for is that the Trojans and the Achaeans meet not on the battlefield, but in the marketplace, or the temple, or in the halls of law. We would hope that they meet at wedding feasts and Olympiads. For they are brethren, or at least they are the ancestors of those who will be kindred. To wage a decimating war over a runaway bride hardly seems prudent, eh? There are great issues to contend over. This is not one of them. History has lessons. We would hope that it teaches more that we are brothers, than enemies. Those who claim that God gave them land, usually haven’t been listening very closely. And it’s a dangerous thing, to be loved by God.

My point? I barely have one. Something about Cassandra. Something about futility. Something about standing above the affray and being powerless to affect its outcome. Calls to mind old Moses, holding out his hands as if in supplication, and while he does so, the battle turns his way. Perhaps that was Cassandra’s mistake. Perhaps she looked no further than to the gift she had already received, and thought her words alone would win the day.

J

The Millennial Gorgons

We have three enemies. One of them wants us dead. One of them wants us gone. One of them wants us changed. Islamists, Invaders, and Liberals. These are the three political themes that I write about. Of course all of them want all of these things, but each is characterized most by just one. There’s no doubt but that the Islamists want us dead – but they also want us changed. But do the invaders really want us gone? Do the liberals really want us dead? Only after a manner of speaking.

What is the diagnostic characteristic of the invaders? Envy. They want what we have. It is not for love of us, that they come. It is that they might have what we have. To get it, they flout our law and violate our borders. That they would trade their effort, their work, for a share of our prosperity is a mere technicality. A thief works too. To sneak about, to break in, to scrabble about in the dark, to risk the loss of time and freedom – there is a way of looking at all this expenditure of energy that could call it work. It’s just unproductive, and disrespectful, and unlawful. Their effort, however diligent or imperative, is destructive to the order of our society.

The invaders come to work, but in so doing they undercut the wages of legal workers. They undermine the respect for law. The benefit they offer does not remediate the harm they do. And from their point of view, we who demand lawful conduct can only be an inconvenience, and a de facto enemy. We are a road block to the full exploitation of the benefits of our culture – a road block easily circumvented, but an inconvenience nevertheless. It would be so much easier if we simply disappeared, vacated the infrastructure we have created and left it for them to enjoy and exploit. If it were otherwise, if they came here to work in partnership with us, they would do so legally.

As for liberals, they call themselves progressives. By this they mean “agents of change,” by which they mean revolutionaries, by which them mean destroyers of what exists so that something different might take its place. They want us changed. Of course I’m reasoning to the extreme, and any link in that chain might be challenged and invalidated. It might be. A liberal is not a revolutionary. But then again, when we consider that it is only the speed of change that marks the difference between the two, such a distinction becomes a quibble. Not all revolutionaries are impatient. The guillotine is not the only tool in their arsenal. They have a satchel filled with slow poisons, and the chisel will work just as surely as dynamite in breaking through walls. So the question remains, is what exists something that should be defended, or destroyed at whatever pace?

The invaders want us changed, that we may welcome their presence with no recriminations or consequences. They want us to cease to be a sovereign nation, and become rather a sort of inverted colony, where their surplus population becomes the finished import they ship to us, and our capital becomes the raw material they send to the motherland.

And the Liberals want us gone. The joke maps where the “red states” (what a perversion) are labeled Jesusland are but one expression of their disassociation with what are, frankly, the traditional values that have sustained this nation for its several hundred years of existence. The parentheses of the Liberal coasts contain the nullity of “fly-over” country. The embarrassment of the heartland is more resented than ignored, and there is no doubt that they want us gone.

As for dead, well, rationality assigns that exclusively the malevolence of the Islamists. They want us changed, into converts to their faith or subjects of their caliphate. They want us gone, as an independent and antipathetic power on this planet to their will. But they want us dead. We – by which I mean we - will not change. We will not disappear. We will not be driven out or made to submit. We must be destroyed. We are the implacable enemy. We have withstood disaster and faced down evil and prevailed over adversity. We have saved the world from every tyranny that has threatened universal freedom, as we have met every challenge of health and hunger that nature has thrown at us. Disease is not vanquished, but it is controlled. Hunger is not banished, but it is isolated. And tyranny still infests the globe, but it is quarantined. We have done this, and will continue to do so for as long as we remain Americans as the term has always been understood.

We can fail, certainly. We can falter and stumble and faint and fall. We are not infallible. Our vigor is not promised. But as we are faithful to what we hold true, and as we teach our sons the values handed down to us by our fathers, and as we cherish the humanity of even our adversaries, even as we stand willing to slay them in our own defense – for this long we have God on our side. And if God is on our side, then it is he who will fight for us. And if this is so, then if we be changed it will only be for the better, and if we leave it will be that our children may take our place, and when we die our memory will be honored to the third and fourth generations. The necessary counterpart of faith, is will. May we have these two, in equal measures.

J

Aid and Comfort

Michael Barrone writes about the shoot-yourself-in-the-foot tactics of the radical Dhems, pointing out that their anti-war because anti-Bush position translates into fewer votes for them, in elections. I’ve cluttered these pages with my share of invective, sarcasm and general ill-will toward the poopy-head Dumbocrats. Nyah. But that’s usually just a game, for me to hear myself talk. I really care about very few things. It’s just fun to have a side to root against. I’m not engaged, here, in anything profound. Don’t expect to generate much buzz in the Nobel Committee. Don’t know any national secrets that I can betray, so I could win a Pulitzer. (Anybody who wants to slip me some, my email address is in my profile. I really could use a Pulitzer, y’know – there’s a space for it on my shelf right next to a 1972 soccer trophy. They called me “El Guero Loco”.) But when we put the silliness aside, we have to understand that it would be nice to have a serious adversary, a thoughtful and reasonable opponent, against whom we might whet our own reason.

I’ve made passing allusions to it before. I am engaged on a nearly daily basis in a pretty grueling sport. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu – a sort of submission wrestling – no striking, just grappling. My son got interested in it last year, and recommended it to me so highly that I bestirred myself and found a studio. I’d never have known what I was missing. If I’d done this thirty years ago, I’d be normal, now. What do little boys do? They find some grass and wrestle. It’s how we’re wired. Little girls pull their chairs together and talk. What, you think puberty changes that? We just get sneakier, is all.

So I’ve been at it for a year now, and I’m getting better. Took nine months for the shriveled part of my brain that’s in charge of complex motor learning to plump up – fatten up the axons, send out new dendrites. I should write a paper on it. But I’m finally at where the young guys start. Here’s my point: As I’m rolling with some newer fella, I’ll tell him his mistakes, right then. Guard your neck … pull your elbows in … put your weight on me, not the mat. That sort of thing. Why? Well, that’s how we learn. And most of the money I’ve ever made was as a teacher. And I’m not there just to win – I’m there to learn, and be challenged, and win after a satisfying struggle.

That’s the attitude that serious people bring to politics. We are merciless with unrepentant fools. But with sincere people who are just wrong, we must be patient and tempered and reasonable. Because not all politics is just about some tax or some regulation. Some politics is about survival. And we need allies. And we win allies by presenting evidence in a rational way.

I wrote about Norma McCorvey – the Roe of Roe v Wade, the abortion case - in my The Place of Refuge. One thing I didn’t mention there is how she got saved. The pro-life preacher would talk to her outside her abortion clinic, during her cigarette-brakes. It grew into a sort of hostile friendship, on her part. Once she said to him, “You know what you need? You need to go to a Beach Boys concert.” “Miss Norma,” said the preacher, “I haven’t been to a Beach Boys concert since 1976.” I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it. It was in that moment of honesty that Norma saw this man as more than just the enemy. He became a human being to her.

Cindy Sheehan has no doubt always been unbalanced. Now she is so undone by grief and rage that she carves up the body of her dead son and endlessly feasts on it before the delighted eyes of her fellow-travelers. Perhaps she has the soul of a terrorist, and values the cause more than the life of her son. Perhaps. But I do not know her secret tears, so will not pronounce on her soul. As for her actions, these are her right. But she is in need, desperate need, of mercy. Her rage must not be matched. It must be met with grace.

Few of us are capable of such magnanimity. For my part, I’ve been overtaken by futility so often that I have no words left, in the face of opposition. And my silence has no eloquence. The most I can do is cast my little posts into the cyber-sea, to be caught up by those few nets that share with me the same currents. All I know is that we all have more to lose. When we think we are as low as we get, there is always something more that can be stolen from us.

The harm Ms. Sheehan does our cause is no greater than that which she does to her own. The harm she does to her soul is like that of a dog driven mad with pain, and chews off its leg as a remedy. It is unlikely that we can give her comfort. But we can refrain from adding to her pain. So if Ms. Sheehan has been driven to distraction and finds comfort in the dust outside a Crawford ranch, the first thing we must do is thank whatever Providence watches over us that her loss is not yet our own. After that, if we have words, let them be spoken in soft tones.

J

Believing in the Great Pumpkin

Teddy Kennedy. To call him a swollen Herod all set to explode into maggots is an insult to Idumean despots. “It’s no wonder that the American people are frustrated with the Republican Congress.” So he starts. Indeed. It is the Republicans who so distress those American people. Not cynical self-seeking bloated hypocrite politicians. Republicans and only Republicans. Yes, Mary Jo Kopechne, there is a Satan, and he is Republican.

“Americans deserve progress, but instead are bombarded with politics driven by fear and division.” How true -- how very true. Kennedy has put his piebald thumb squarely on the issue. If only the Republicans could be a force for moderation and unity, like the Kennedy Party -- at which there are hardly any rapes at all. But instead those Republican bastards I mean badguys all bombard (like the warmongers they are -- boo! Boo on the Republican warmongers!!!) Americans, who all must disagree with those Republicans even though more than half voted for Bush who didn’t really win but stole the election. Bombard, because that’s what republicans do, instead of engage in reasoned discourse like Kennedy does all the time. Oh, pardon me -- I’m slobbering for some reason. Did one of my brain vessels burst? Perhaps I’ve been drinking all night at a party. Better go for a ride in the crisp night air. Hey, babe, let’s hit the road. I’ll drive. No, sugar, no worries -- don’t be afraid. It’s me, Loverboy. What? -- you're afraid to go for a drive with me? Have you been listening to those Republicans? Stupid bitch -- I could kill you for that. Now git in the fuckin' car, you stupid whore, and don't give me any more back talk. I'm Teddy Kennedy! Kennedy!!!! Get it? My brother was president!!! Who the hell do you think you are? Nothing, that's what. I'm a Kennedy! I could get away with murder.

“They deserve action on the challenges we face as a nation -- an endless and costly war in Iraq, skyrocketing gas prices and soaring health-care costs.” What sane American person could argue with this? Certainly there is an endless and costly war in Iraq. These three years are literally endless. Oh, the eternity of this Iraqi War that stretches before us unto the fading of the utmost stars, just as it trails into the boundless past beyond all comprehension. Truly, we waged it with Nebuchadnezzar and Hammurabi and Sargon and Chedorlaomor and Nimrod himself.

And the cost! I’m sure I’m not the first to announce to every nation, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay no price at all, bear no manner of burden, flee from all hardship, abandon every friend, appease every foe, because all we care about is our own selfish and petty comfort even at the cost of liberty. Oh, and gas prices are high, because of Republicans. And, um, health-care costs too. Somebody ought to make hamburgers illegal. Because only senior politicians of the Senate should be allowed to be fat.

“Rather than dealing with real priorities, the Republican leadership is focused on writing discrimination into the Constitution.” For sure. It must have been Republicans who wrote the Constitution in the first place -- I mean, what with slavery and all. Thank heaven the Democrats destroyed that institution, and fought an endless and costly Civil War -- just like the one in Iraq, only that's also like Vietnam -- to do it. I’m sure that’s how I read it in something the DNC emailed me.

An amendment to the Constitution, defining marriage? Seems like a really stupid idea, to me. For real. No sarcasm. It was just a political ploy by Republicans -- a bone to their sorely neglected base -- the less thoughtful elements of that base. How about an amendment defining life? That would fix the abortion problem. How about an amendment prohibiting unfairness? That would fix all sorts of problems.

But these are policy issues, rather than principle issues, and they would have the effect of the Volstead Act, or the Ninth Amendment, or the First Amendment -- repealed, ignored, or interpreted beyond recognition. I mean, why would rules be followed? There’s something about having things written out that ensures they’ll be obeyed? After all, everyone knows what, say, marriage is -- it’s not like a mystery or something. But the fact that we know what it is doesn’t mean it can’t be made to be something else -- like any law, or amendment, or item of common sense.

So the politicians will continue to shoot their wet and sticky spitwads, maybe throwing erasers, maybe dipping pigtails into inkwells. Theirs is after all such a deliberative body. And we, the American people, will continue to sit cross legged, hunched forward, intently studying their example that we may profit by it. I’m not sure if the proper image is of the Pied Piper or of Esau … wouldn’t it be grand if those two could gay-marry and miraculously have a magical child to be a messiah who would lead us into a fairyland of happiness where wars are not endless and gas prices are low? But maybe that’s wishful thinking do you suppose? And anyway maybe there’s room in Kennedy’s backseat for us -- I mean in his car. I’m sure he could take us to another world. It’s what he’s trying to do.



J

Aloha State; or, What We Don’t Expect

In June of 1959, 94% of Hawaiians voted for statehood, and the flag was finished. It seems, however, that the Civil War did not decide the question, is it possible to subtract stars from the flag?

In 1993, with typical clintonian hubris, clinton signed a resolution apologizing to native Hawaiians for the US’s part in deposing Queen Liliuokalani a hundred years before. clinton was so very good at issuing apologies, wasn’t he. As we must expect, clinton - who unlike the queen did not abdicate - managed in his resolution to divide the people of Hawaii along racial lines. It’s what he does. He excited untoward passions. It’s what he does.

Upshot? Our Elders in Washington will be considering S. 147, the so-called Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, which would “permit the creation of an exclusively race-based government of 'native' Hawaiians to exercise sovereignty over native Hawaiians living anywhere in the United States. This government would be treated as a separate but dependent nation, just as many Indian tribes are. It also would have the right to exempt itself from any parts of the Constitution it didn't agree with.”

Congress does not have the Constitutional power or authority to create new governments or nations and then exempt them from the Constitution. And nevermind the 14th Amendment problems. Native – meant as a racial term, rather than merely indicating place of birth – Hawaiians would be allowed to implement a race-based governing structure, ensured by a racial database created and maintained by the Federal government.

Some think it’s a bad idea. It sounds like a really good idea to me. But I’m an Aryan, so it would. I mean, the Scandinavians did settle America – Leif Ericson, Vinland … you know. Blue-eyed Indians along the Atlantic coast and in Canada … come on! - work with me. So I, sharing blood as I do with my Indian Aryan brothers, hope only to benefit from such race-based governing. I understand Akaka’s motives perfectly. My people have been oppressed by the man long enough! Power to the people. Down with Amerikkka! Or up with it – I’m a little confused.

When asked if his measure could lead to Hawaiian separatist independence, the bill's sponsor, Senator Akaka, a Democrat racist – but I repeat myself – told NPR, “I'm leaving it up to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.” You see, by pretending that any move in that direction would only be realized a hundred or a million years from now, we just don’t have to think about it. But you will have noticed the problem. We have, in the United States Senate, an elected official who acknowledges the fact that his bill opens the door for the State of Hawaii to secede from the Union. Ah – the South shall rise! Hawaii is after all the southernmost state.

While the Senate on the one hand is clearing the way for southern invaders to assume the full rights of citizens, on the other hand it is considering exempting certain citizens from the onerous obligations of the Constitution and the tiresome burden of US citizenship. Irony? Not at all. Very consistent. The US is only a concept, a made up idea that can be mutated or distorted at will. Constitution? A list of suggestions.

Oh. Did I say consistent? Yet what we mustn’t expect is consistency. I’ve repeated the maxim, politics is the art of the possible, and this is most certainly true. But it should be clarified: the art of politics is the art of the possible. Politics itself is a compromise between home-invasions and prostitution. It’s all about illicit penetrations, I guess. Rather like our immigration policy. Or a certain former president.

Reports have it that six Republicans are in support of the bill, giving it the necessary 51 votes to pass.

Ave, America, atque vale.


J

"...and you are no Harry Truman."

Peter Beinart’s WaPo column on Thursday complained that the Republican camp has hijacked Harry Truman. Guilty - we’ve hijacked Harry Truman. Conservatives agree that it was almost Truman who annunciated the Bush Doctrine, when he said: “It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” And Beinart too agrees that in this anti-totalitarian stance, Bush and Truman have much in common, but asserts that this is in no way justification for the frequent comparisons.

No no no, think Beinart, and au contraire. It is in this militarism, and only in this, that there is a similarity. In every other meaningful way, Bush and Truman are nearly opposites. After all, didn’t Truman also say, "We all have to recognize, no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please." And how unlike Mr. Bush this is, who clearly always does as he pleases.

Truman promoted peace by aligning himself with “powerful international institutions, which could invest American power with the credibility that the Soviets lacked.” Bush could never do this, right? That whole UN thing with Afghanistan doesn’t count, for some reason, and the so-called Coalition of the Willing in Iraq is just a big joke – no credibility could possibly come from it, among those of a certain political persuasion, such as Mr. Beinart’s. I mean, Truman would never have wanted America to lead. That would be wrong. Somehow.

Truman supported the ideas of the United Nations, and NATO, and the World Bank, and the IMF, and the World Trade Organization. These self-imposed counterbalances to American power were somehow a good thing by Truman’s lights, and Beinart’s. “Truman also believed that spreading democracy required combating economic despair.” Thus the Marshall Plan, to rebuild war-ravaged Europe.

In contrast, Bush trashed the Kyoto Treaty, and spurns the International Criminal Court, and distrusts the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In “the Bush administration, opposing infringements on U.S. sovereignty has become a cardinal foreign policy principle.”

Well. I pause for a moment, to smile a crooked smile. Yes. Mr. Beinart seems to suppose that this difference is most telling and invalidates any meaningful comparison. My question is this: What has been the lesson of history, in these matters? Has the UN fulfilled its charter? Has the public dream of its founders been realized? Is the UN a force in this world for order and justice? Those who are informed in the matter, I believe, will say it has not been such a force. Has the IMF, with its loans of billions of dollars to underdeveloped nations, improved those nations? Are these countries now dynamic engines of wealth and opportunity? Or have such loans simply disappeared into the bottomless pit of incompetence and corruption, leaving only a legacy of massive debt for governments, and despair for the populations? Those who are informed in the matter are not optimistic. NATO? It is an arm of American will, or it is nothing at all. And so on.

As for the Marshal Plan – uh, was it 187 quadrillion dollars that we sent to Iraq for just that purpose? Memory fails. But Mr. Beinart has dismissed or forgotten it entirely, for some reason, for all that the purposes of these two rebuilding plans are identical: to build a strong and strategeric ally. I wonder then what Beinart’s point could be? It must be that Bush is a moron who looks like a chimp.

Where Truman has been vindicated – in his active, aggressive resistance to tyranny – we find a clear agreement in philosophy with Bush. But Bush looks for no guidance from or similarity to Truman in his Democrat-faith in committees and bureaucracies. These have after all proven to be an opium eater’s nightmare, and to follow them would be - would be, uh, moronic. Here, then we find the whole point of the conservatives’ Truman-Bush comparison. We do not imitate failure.

To me, the most telling sentence in Beinart’s piece is this: “In Bush's view, American power legitimizes itself -- we don't need to listen to other countries, because sooner or later they will realize that we were right and they were wrong.” Beinart seems rather snide in his allusion to American power, but that’s just the liberal position, and we must overlook it. And he is sarcastic about the idea that Bush thinks that he is right and those who disagree with him are wrong. I’ll make no comment at all, as to that.

The bias in Beinart’s view turns to bigotry in the phrase “we don’t need to listen…” Bush has listened, and disagrees. He saw the idealism of the UN perverted into bribery and fraud, and child molestation. He saw the hope of the IMF degenerate into waste and greater poverty. He did listen to these lessons, and learned. It seems that Bush’s great offence, in hijacking the legacy of Truman, is in agreeing only with the ideas that turned out to be good ones. That’s discrimination.

J

Why It’s Good To Hate America

Yes they are too unpatriotic. They most certainly are. It’s like a sporting event. You want a team to win, or you don’t. You cheer at good news, you are downcast at bad. Your emotions are involved – your passions. You are invested in the outcome of any conflict, any tradings, any negotiations. You want your side – your side – to come out ahead. There's a First Place, and a last, and you want to win. You’re a fan, or you’re not. And you are a patriot, or you are not

For my part, there is virtually no professional sport that I care about. I am utterly indifferent to the entire industry. I lack the sport-watching gene, and I maintain a sort of droll indifference to all these spectacles. I’ll ask who won the American Foot Ball Super Bowl, or the, uh, Basket Ball Super Bowl, but only to make polite conversation. I do know the Angels (a regional "Bass-Ball" association) won the "World Series" a few years ago. I only remember it because somebody explained to me that they won because they reverted to an old-fashioned notion of teamwork, rather than the current model of prima donnas tending after their stats. I liked that, so I remembered it. But you see that I am not, in any way, by any possible definition, a fan. I am an unfan. I am unfanatic - almost every other form of entertainment is superior to professional sports.

Is there shame, in this? After all, it’s not very manly, is it. But there are all sorts of unmanly things about me. I don’t drink beer. Never tasted it. I’ve never purchased pornography – although I suppose the internet makes that notion obsolete. Hm. Well, I guess that’s all the unmanly things about me – so it wasn't all sorts of things, but it’s a few. My point is, golly, I’m really manly. Well, that’s one of my points. My salient point is that I am in no way, at all, to even the slightest degree, uncomfortable or apologetic about my unfanaticism. If somebody called me an unfanatic, I'd agree with them and secretly think I’m better than they are for it. Get it?

So why do the moonbats cavil at the charge of unpatriotism? They do not root for America to win, and do not cheer when we do. They celebrate our failures and broadcast our shames. Is this hyperbole? They argue against our excellence. They argue for the superiority of virtually any other country, over this one. Am I wrong? They rejoice in the claim that patriotism is the refuge of scoundrels. So the question is, what evidence of any sort do they exhibit, in even the slightest degree, of patriotism?

Patriotism is more than an abstract principle, or an undifferentiated feeling of wishing things were going well. It isn’t merely a fondness for some idealized past or imagined future. It’s not a romantic, regionalized adoration of snow-peaked mountains and dramatic gorges. Patriotism loves what exists now, in the actual world of human experience. It is current events as much as history or prediction. Patriotism accepts the manifold flaws of a nation, because it understands that a nation is simply the symbiosis of citizens and the institutions they have crafted for themselves. That means that no nation can be anything other than a reflection of human nature – deeply flawed, sometimes noble, always complex.

A patriot embraces this necessary inelegance. And rather than focus on what is paltry and ugly, imagining this nation embodies such imperfections more thoroughly than all others, a patriot looks beyond what is commonplace and petty and finds something to admire – finds very much to love. We do not endlessly rehearse our failures, but strive rather to learn their lessons, that we may excel – always understanding that more failures will come. At the same time, we celebrate our victories, our glories, our excellence – as we might cheer the success of our children, in their competitions. We do so not for love of the game, but love of the players.

When I had a wife, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. To me. Others would have disagreed. Perhaps they would have said that honor was claimed by their own beloved wives. And they, too, would have been right. God bless the French patriot. May Great Britain always be great. As long as a civilized country is loved, it is worthy of love. Oh, Nazi Germany, you object? I didn’t say as long as an insane racist regime is loved, now, did I. And I did say, a civilized country. But you see my point. Why do I love my family? If for no other reason, because it is my duty. And insofar as a nation is good for its families, there is a duty to love that nation.

Of course, that’s the root of the matter. Families. We do not argue by etymology, but we find insight there. Patriotism. From the Greek root patrios, “of one’s fathers.” Ah. Fathers. Well. Framed like this, of course the wingnut would absolutely rejoice in being called unpatriotic. Those brutish, nasty, hairy men! They’re so, uh, manly. If only we could be more, um, matriotic. Or at least a waxed and plucked metrosexuotic. But I grow silly.

I’ve made an observation about liberals, that is virtually diagnostic. They will, eventually, inevitably formulate some version of the sentence, "Americans are bad." Selfish, wasteful, violent – some negative generality. If I’m feeling sociable enough, I’ll ask, "Don't you mean to say that people are bad?" The hard lefties say, "No! Americans!" The moderate, or sane liberals say, "Yes, I meant people." The goats separate themselves from the sheep, the unpatriots from the patriots. When a liberal can examine himself, and correct himself, as I’ve seen happen, he’s that much closer to becoming a patriot. And good welcome, to him.

Oh. Why is it good to hate America? So that we may know who the enemy is.


J

Remembering

The eloquent and troublesome Christopher Hitchens reminds us, necessarily, of an utterly self-evident truth: “Since all efforts at commemoration are bound to fall short, one must be on guard against any attempt at overstatement. In particular, one must resist efforts to ventriloquize the dead. …Nothing is more tasteless, when set against the reality of death, than the hollow note of demagogy and false sentiment.”

It is necessary to be reminded of self-evident truths. That is what remembrance is. That is what a day of memorial is. How could we ever forget the loss of what is beloved? But we do. Not forget, exactly, but the raw wound in our hearts becomes scar tissue, and scar tissue has no feeling. The memory, then, becomes more seen than felt. And this too is necessary. How could we survive, poised forever on anguish?

But what is seen constantly before our eyes becomes commonplace, and loses its value. Do we watch every sunset? We would, if we had been blind but somehow gained sight. We would, for a time. Then we’d have to remind ourselves to do so. We’d set aside some special time, to savour what is precious. We’d make a date, with the sunset, so that we might remember to be grateful.

So it is with every anniversary. The passing of a year is an arbitrary nothingness. What about the fact of the revolution of the earth has meaning? We don't generally allow ourselves to think of annual, uh, anniversaries as meaningless, because it would lead to a calling into question of every value we may hold. Such speculations are the duty of all adolescents, and are resolved, with maturity, not so much as imponderables as practicalities. Necessity is a great arbiter.

What isn't necessary, what is unnecessary is drama – or I should say, melodrama. Words can do more to detract, than add to the meaning of actions. So we do not say that men gave their lives. Hardly any of them gave their lives, and to say otherwise is to deny what war is. We are drafted, or volunteer, not to die but to kill. The horrifying symmetry of the equation is that they on the other side do the same thing. If we’d known that it was us who would die, we might have tried to find some way around it. Do we not have wives? – little children? It is the uncertainty of war, that makes it possible. Uncertainty and, again, necessity. In any event, ours is not the culture that honors the suicide. When we do choose to lay down our lives, it is rarely simply to kill the enemy – it is almost always to save our friends.

That’s why we fight. That’s why, even when our lives are taken, they are given. That’s why even when anguish finally grows dull, it must be remembered. Because it is hardly ever for nothing. Some of us recall what the greatest love is – to lay down your life for another. This is something that needs to be remembered.

They do not go, to die. They do not go into violent death joyfully. It is a great price to pay, and must be remembered not only with thankfulness, but grief. They pass down and out of our sight into lonely uncertainty, and for all that they may have faith, they go into darkness.

I would damn myself for a fool, if I lost my son. There could be no memorial that would ease my heart. Such is my fear. It isn’t about me, though, is it. But the only truth we know is the one that has been made real to us. Everything else is just ventriloquism.

God bless those who have been slain in a righteous cause. May we preserve a proper thankfulness in our hearts and in our actions. May we remember the beauty of sunsets, even if we fail to lift our eyes.

J

The Da Vinci Code

Da Vinci!  Leonardo Da Vinci!  Oh yes, that Day Vinsi was really the bomb.  I just love Du Venchy.  Wha?  Huh?  Oh, is it DaviNci?  Or dAVinci?  Huh?  Oh!  Lookit!  It's - it's an anagram!!!  For Avid, Inc!  Aha! - a corporate conspiracy!!  And of Diva, Inc!!!!  and Vida, Inc!  Ha!!!!  The Trilateral cOmmmisSSiooon must be involved!!!!  Oh!!  Look!!  More bigger annnagramms!!!!  Secret coded massages!

"Leonardo DavINCi": An ID lover on acid!   A livid Onan coder!   A radical non-Ovid!   An oil-rancid dove!   A nod on larvicide!   I, a craven odd lion?!   Nonracial, voided!   Ordinal voidance!   Old Irvin, a deacon!?   - in Lord-avoidance!   Endocardial vino!?   Ice or an odd anvil!   Indican overload!   Naive old Dr. No (CIA!)!

Ha!  Aha!  See?!?  Hahaha!!!  It all makes so much sense now.  I see it so clearly!@!

Ah! "The DAvINci cODe"!!!   An odd vice-ethic!   Oh, even didactic!   Havoc-inticed id!   Devine cod, ha (etc.)!   Vindicated echo!   Hidden coactive!   Devoid? Chance it!   Invited, coached!    Cathodic endive!   Did a Cohen evict?!   Convict Eddie?   Ha!   It vaccine - he odd!   Accident dive, ho!   Addictive Enoch!   Ditch acne video!   Detach'd invoice!

What guiding intelligence could have framed such an arabesque, such tessellated complexity??  Don't you see?  Can't you see it?!

"Daniel Brown"!   Win, boner-lad!   A blinder, now!   Adlib reknown!   Noble Darwin!   New Bond liar!   Low - an inbred!   Low-end brain!   Indrawn lobe!   Innard bowel!   I, a blown nerd!   Winnable rod!   A dinner bowl!   Worn bean-lid!   Bow, inlander!   Bonnie drawl!   No new bridal!   Darn bowline!   Dali, newborn!   Walden robin!   En-bird an owl!   Boil wren DNA!  No warble - din!   Do Berlin? Naw!   Bold new Iran!   Bin Laden row!   Nile war bond!   Radon blew in!   Learn now - bid!   Win - be Ronald!

The heavens are rent!  The stars are wormwood holes in the crystaline empyrium through which I crouching dare to peak and glimpse a nonce of what secrets shower upon my reeling mind and yes!  I see! I see!

"United States of America" -  Outrace defeatism, saint!  Fate made resuscitation!  Creation defeats autism!  Cautioners mediate fast! A nut defames atrocities!  I, Centaur, meditate sofas!  Fame's dantier outcaste!  Catatonia defies muster!  Tame sectarianised tofu!  Tenacious fatted armies!  Suitcase-attired foeman!  Stout cafeteria maidens!  Imitate deaf courtesans!  A factitious semen trade!  Samaritan foetus deceit!  Deft titmouse-caesarian!  Meditate erotica snafus!  Softie radiances mutate!  Castrated minutiae foes!  Academia's fourteen tits.  Traumatise defecations!

Beautiful.  It's so beautiful!

"Conspiracy"!   Spicy acorn!   Prosaic NYC!   Cyanic pros!   Crionic sap!   Orca-Spy, Inc.!

Yesss!  Yesssssss!

ahem

Did I say that out loud? Sometimes the voices in my head come out of my mouth.

But the man's name is not Da Vinci. Never was. You can get away with it in the title. But in the text, it shoulda been da Vinci. Little d. I'm sure it can't possibly reflect on Mr. Brown's scholarship, though. And I'm like totally sure that all the rest of it is right. Mr. Christ knocked up Ms. Magdalene, y'see, and then got bumped off, and Peter for some reason just decided to totally lie about all the stuff that Jaycee really taught. I guess cuz Peter knew the dude was really, like, wrong, or something.

Makes sense to me.

What was that!? Didn't you hear it? Those voices. They won't shut the hell up.

"Those voices!"   Soviet's echo!   Vices soothe!   Cohesive sot!

"Osama bin Laden!"  A damn alien SOB!   Anal demon-bias!   No alias: bad men!   Bad as Mao, Lenin!   Be a sand oilman!   A Lebanon Midas!   Banned Somalia?!   I am also banned!   On NAMBLA ideas!   A lesbian nomad!   A blade onanism!   ...'n' boned a salami!   Old semi banana!   End labia moans!   Madonna is a lib!   A bad Neal Simon!   An insane, bald Mo!   Blade manias? NO!!!   Animals on a bed!   No asian bedlam!    Nine bad Alamos!   A doable sin, man!   Sad, mean albino!   Islamabad neon!   A base mandoline! Inland amoebas!   Abandon a smile!   Ban'd anomalies!   A snail abdomen!

"Fawlty Towers!"  Frowsy wattle!   Waterfowl sty!   Ow - flyswatter!   Felt way worst!   Wow, Lefty Tsar!   Two warty elfs!   Satyr wetflow!   Flowery twats!

Yessss!



J

Fair Play

Charles Krauthammer: “Do liberals really believe in a de facto policy that depresses the wages of the poorest and most desperate Americans...? Do liberals believe that the number, social class, educational level, background and country of origin of immigrants ... should be taken out of the hands of the American citizenry and left to the immigrants themselves, and in particular, to those most willing to break the very immigration regulations the American people have decided upon democratically?”

These are points I’ve made, in these pages. Krauthammer, a psychiatrist, poses them in terms of Freud’s last words: what do liberals want? Indeed, what do they want? We’ll put aside the trite and the truism, and look for substance, in this immigration debate. Okay, substance. Um. Uh. Hm. Uh.

ahem

Okay, let’s forget that. Let’s consider the trite and the truistic. They want fair play. Well, that’s what laws are for – so they want different laws? No. The laws specific to this immigration issue are simply not enforced, so it’s not strictly a practical matter of law. It must be that having to sneak, rather than riding in chartered buses - or parade floats - across the border doesn’t seem fair, to them. Yes. That must be it. It certainly is not fair that foreigners should have been born in some other country, and for that mere and ugly truth are condemned to a life of summer dust and winter mud. It would be fair if everyone started out with the same blessings of a prosperity-promoting culture and non-corrupt institutions.

And there is something demeaning to the soul and inimical to one’s dignity, to creep by night across desert wastes, or crawl like proud penitents through transnational tunnels. I know, for my part, that a large part of why I don’t do sneaky, creepy, cowardly, dishonest things is that my conscience would torment me utterly if I did. So those who have arrived here by doing such shameful things enjoy the physical fruits of their actions, at some price to their honor. Well, as every liberal knows, negative feelings are bad, and their cause must be legislated against.

The guilt - or rather the inconvenience - of being here unlawfully must be a grave emotional burden. It ought not be. Their crime should be expiated, and can be simply by saying it is so. Amnesty is absolution. And pardon my bias, but that seems just about the only forgiveness a liberal wants – from society.

It boils down to conscience. And with a liberal, to me, it seems that conscience has more to do with feeling right, than doing right. It’s alright to change the rules retroactively. It’s required that everyone, losers along with winners, gets a trophy. Morality is a continuum of infinite gradations of gray, with no final resolution into black or white. We’ll just vote on the definition of right or wrong, and that’ll settle it. The imposing trove of defense mechanisms by which we justify ourselves will be the sacraments of sanctification in a secular faith of fair play.

Oh my. Is this a rant? My tone is quite calm ... but I intended to deal with so many other points. Because I’m sure liberals want more than just illegals to have high self-esteem. Should there be a Part Two? Hardly seems worth the bother. It’s like writing a manual on the care and feeding of unicorns. I’d just be guessing.

But after all, nobody has the right to tell me I’m wrong. It’s a free country. Whatever that means. I get the free part. But the definition of country seems increasingly gray.

J