Romney?

The results are not in. Romney seems to be leading in Michigan. His home state, where his father was governor, so he’d better be leading there. He seems to be. That’s good. Just for the interest of it, the entertainment value. Politics seems to be my spectator sport. Not a fanatic, not a season ticket holder. Just a guy who knows most of the players and reads the daily scores and watches the big games. Army v. Navy. The World Series. So these are the playoffs, I guess. Nobody’s out yet.

I’ve been hoping and expecting that Huckabee’s brightest moment has passed. An odd choice favored by an odd caucus. Just not a conservative, which is certainly not a requirement, but we’d somehow sort of expect it from the party faithful who dare the snows to sit in high school gyms and drafty cafeterias. McCain is viable. He’s a great man, we know, from his real and meaningful heroism. He is his biography. He’s just not material for a Republican president. He should be the Democrat nominee. It would bring a tiny bit of honor to that frankly rather vile party of slavery and abortion. As it is, he is, as they’re saying, the anti-conservative. All those bills he’s co-sponsored are hyphenated with some democrat. Hasn’t anyone noticed that? Kennedy, Feingold … Leiberman sorta.

Uh, Kennedy -- he’s the guy who got us into this immigration mess. He wrote the immigration law in the '60s that replaced the nationality quota system with the insane and nationally self-destructive “system” we have now, which has completely thrown out the idea that immigration should serve the needs of the nation, not (only) those of the immigrant. This is the guy who blocked wind power generators because they would spoil his view of the horizon. When he thinks of vistas, what comes to mind is mere real estate. Co-sponsoring anything with him is like, well, like his '60s immigration law. Only one side comes out ahead -- the one listing to the left.

Ah, how refreshing it is to be in the Stupid Party. Somehow. I guess I like the predictability? We get a good president every 20 or 30 years or so. Lincoln, TR, uh, Coolidge, Eisenhower, Reagan. I’m leaving our current Bush out of the list. Being right on the war is big, but you have to be right on more than just one thing.

Well, now Romney is viable again, it seems. The polls and pundits must be right. Like stopped clocks. I’m not against him. He’ll do. He sounds good. Looks fabulous, and you must understand how important that is to me, a Left Coast boy. Good hair, a tan, a straight nose … saying so many of the right-sounding things -- what more do we need from a leader?


J

Airports

Somebody asked me today -- well, yesterday -- if the days seemed longer. I asked what he meant, but I knew. Part of it was just me being careful with meaning. Mostly it was a way of keeping distance. The days of anticipation. I keep distance even from myself. Yes, it’s better than Christmas, but that’s not saying much. The things we get for Christmas are just things. I’m getting my son back.

All night long the phrase has been echoing through my mind. To love is to be hostage to fate. We can always be hurt, and we know we will be. The pain we suffer on our own account just makes us angry. Maybe afraid. Depends on our character. But anger and anxiety are their own sort of security -- the comfort of the known. We have no power to take onto ourselves the pain of the ones we love. Nothing we can do can ensure their safety. We are helpless, and no plan or prayer can be trusted as a promise. There’s nothing more helpless than a hostage.

But my son will be back tomorrow, having passed unharmed through the fire of war. I see myself waiting at the airport, calm, impassive almost. I’m good at keeping distance. Then I’ll see him and smile and we’ll hug. Not a lot of eye contact, from me. I’ll be a little shy. Like when he was three, and I met him at the airport, and took him from his mother’s arms and held him like he was a part of my body, and we smiled with our hearts, and were glad beyond words, and he was a little shy.

I’m good at waiting. I’ve learned patience. That’s what life is -- outlasting hunger and thirst and poison and betrayal. It’s a little dramatic sounding, I know. I must be wrong. Life must be something other than just this. Oh. I suppose outlasting hunger comes at the pleasure of good food and sweet water. I suppose that poison changes places with the joy of health and vigor. I suppose that betrayal finds its anodyne in love.

We can’t be betrayed unless we trust. I think we can love without trusting. Maybe it’s that we know some people can’t hurt us, yet. But that’s a sort of trust. No matter. There’s hardly any need of trust at all. We know how it ends. It’s just a question of what we do in the meantime. We define our lives by our conduct. We are patient and generous, or petty and arrogant, as it falls upon us to be. I suppose we have a choice, but it doesn’t seem that way to me. It seems arbitrary. It seems like we are hostages to fate.

I’m not in a mood. This is what I think. The days don’t seem longer. I’ve been waiting for five and a half years. I've been waiting my whole life.


J

Amnesty, Abortion and Acid

George McGovern is still alive? So it would seem. I thought he’d surely have been dead by now. Nope. Like Gloria Steinem, somehow he’s managed to elude the Grim Reaper for yet one more season. Maybe I got him mixed up with Timothy Leary? And have you noticed how much bill clinton is starting to look like Boris Yeltsin? It’s uncanny. A cross between Yeltsin and WC Fields. And Pinocchio. He's a real boy.

McGovern. Ran against Nixon in ’72. On the Surrender Platform. Biggest electoral defeat in history.
Lost his own home state. What goes around comes around. And McGovern has recycled himself again, conscientious dumpster-diver that he is, in his latest effort to persuade us that Bush should be impeached.

Generally I’d just ignore it. But it was such a perfect specimen of irrationality that I couldn’t pass it up. His article. It’s exactly like that ridiculous thing I wrote a few days ago, about what a racist I am, and the excellent reasons for it. “Racism is a very good thing. It means many things to many people.” Yada yada yada. Lord I'm stupid. That’s what McGovern does here. Lookit.

He starts by saying he did not join in on the call to impeach his nemesis, Nixon. “I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.” Hm. Is that the reason? Because it would make him look petty? Despite the merit of the effort, as he would have seen it? Hardly speaks of integrity. But he is after all only a politician -- the one who said he would stand by running-mate Thomas Eagleton "1000%," and then dumped him because of a really stupid controversy (Eagleton had undergone electroshock treatment in the ’60s. Gasp.) Ah well. It's not a strong start, but maybe McGovern will give us lots of sound reasoning and concrete examples about impeaching Bush and Cheney.

“The political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans...” Oh. Ouch. Um. Okay. It’s us. The Republicans. Sure. Prove it? No? Okay. “So the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction are not promising,” says he. “But what are the facts?” Ah. Yes. Facts. Please.

“Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ to use the constitutional standard.”

Alas. Alas. It seems needful to observe that these are charges, not facts. Violated the Constitution? Article and section, please. Transgressed law? Which? When? Lied? Specifics, sir. Being wrong, if they have been wrong, is not the same as lying. It is embarrassing to have to point this elementary, this primary fact out. A lie is a misstatement told with intent to deceive. So very basic. Barbaric? Does he refer to waging war? An infantile charge. To “waterboarding”? I believe it’s been used three times. And it’s no more barbaric than war itself -- orders of magnitude less, I should think, since it involves only fear and discomfort. I must be much more barbaric than Bush. There’d be no doubt about what I’d have done. The bodies would not be recognizable as human. Call me crazy. A “constitutional standard”? But isn’t the Constitution a living, breathing document? The standards must always, then, be shifting.

“From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.” Hardly an observation relevant to the specific issue at hand. Let’s try to stay on point, George. Yes, yes, Bush somehow stole the election. There can be no rebuttal to that. Inventing the previously unheard-of categories of the “hanging” and “dimpled” and “pregnant” “chads” -- at the expense of throwing out the already-established statutory criteria and definitions of what a legal, an acceptable, a valid vote was. Felons voting and soldiers being denied the vote -- there is no answer. The media interference, of prematurely announcing a Florida victory for Gore, so that 10,000 voters in the largely conservative panhandle (in a later time-zone) stayed home rather than vote -- no matter. No matter to any of the other answers. There is no answer. Only the Left is reasonable. Don’t they tell us so themselves?

“The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq.” My my. So many adjectives. Who does he think he is? Me? “Murderous.” An emotional term. Like, ‘Abortion is murder.’ No lawful killing can be murderous. He means homicidal. Yes, I agree, the war is, almost by definition, homicidal. “Illegal.” Congress voted on it and approved it. Congress could vote to stop its funding, and so stop it. Therefore, since the lawmakers have not made it illegal, it is not illegal. Now the Vietnam war -- that was made illegal. “Nonsensical.” Killing terrorists, or if you must, insurgents -- killing islamofascists is like killing Nazis. When one is nonsensical, the other will be. “Against Iraq.” That does say it all, doesn’t it. He thinks that we’re fighting against Iraq. No, sir, we are fighting in Iraq. Mostly Iranians, Syrians and Saudis, in Iraq. That McGovern cannot perceive this fact gives us a sad and frightening peek into his confused mind.

The war has been expensive, in terms of treasure and lives? Sir. One point three million casualties in the Battle of the Somme. Six hundred thousand Americans died in WWII -- which annually cost the USA 40% of its GDP. Is my point taken? In any event, it is hardly credible that a Democrat should speak of waste.

“All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires...” Yes, I agree. There is however this thing called the War Powers Act. Sort of grants the president the ability to do what he’s doing. If you don’t like it, change the law.

And there has been “the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.” Abuse? Could be. But not of “prisoners” -- a technical term. If at all, of “unlawful combatants,” another, distinct, technical term. Your reference to the Geneva Convention? It is meaningless, George. If you have read the relevant articles, you have not understood them. As I have previously observed, the 1949 Geneva Convention explicitly excludes unlawful combatants from its provisions -- specifically by Article 4, A, 2, b & d. You don’t like that fact? Well then just ignore it. And call Bush a liar.

The “Bush-Cheney team repeatedly deceived Congress, the press and the public into believing that Saddam had nuclear arms and other horrifying banned weapons that were an ‘imminent threat’ to the United States. The administration also led the public to believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks -- another blatant falsehood.” Good. You’ve called Bush a liar. Now do a little dance while singing 'I’ve Got a Loverly Buncha Cocernuts'.

Clearly McGovern has not been reading my blog. How can we take him seriously? “Repeatedly deceived.” “Blatant falsehood.” We’ve been over that “deceived” thing. As for “blatant,” I just don’t know. Maybe it happened and I missed it? I’m not a news junkie. But if McGovern is talking about some well-covered story, I expect he’s just wrong. As I’ve heard it, Iraq -- Saddam -- was involved with terrorists in general, not with 9/11 specifically. There are whole books documenting Saddam’s terrorist connections. Jon Stewart called one of them (here, here) a “piece of crap” in front of the author. That’s the day I stopped watching him. Funny, until the rudeness made him not funny anymore.

McGovern references “illegal” wiretaps and “fear-mongering” that “has led government spokesmen and cooperative members of the press to imply that we are at war with the entire Arab and Muslim world...” At the age of 85, he should have acquired a capacity to appreciate nuances. There are shades of gray. There is room for interpretation. He doesn’t seem to get that. It’s a little sad, but it doesn’t make him wrong. What makes him wrong is that the FISA laws to which he refers allow for monitoring "foreign power"(including terrorist organizations) communications outside the USA, and limits action only regarding "US persons". Surely somebody must have explained this to him?

I know. It's confusing. What if a US person is communicating abroad with a terrorist organization? I'd say, tap. Just don't listen to the US persons side of the conversation. Impracticable? No matter. The whole issue is rendered moot by the Protect America Act of 2007, by which communications with foreign country persons may be tapped by the US without supervision by the FISA Court.

That there may be disagreement of the interpretation of such laws does not make one side stupid, bad, evil, or liars. As for fear-mongering and compliant press members, what I personally have notices is the care that always seems to be taken to distinguish Islam from the terrorists. Even I do that, and I’m clearly a hater. McGovern is just wrong -- if not, he could prove himself correct with but a few unanswerable specifics.

Well. He goes on and on. So have I. He talks some more about how bad and stupid Bush is. None if it would really apply to impeachment. So, enough.

Sir. You have not given us facts. You have given us assertions. A fact is something that may be demonstrated. In seeking to prove a case, demonstration is a requirement. Calling Bush a bad man tells us all about how you feel. We are under no obligation to adopt your emotion as our own. We would follow evidence. You have brought many charges, unsupported. This is a shameful thing. But perhaps you are past shame. It’s possible that you would have been a worse president than Carter.

So you can just kiss my black ass. I’ve never really understood that phrase. Who has a black ass? It's nonsensical. It must be one of those idiomatic saying that means something without meaning anything, if you get my, uh, meaning.


J

Creepout

Marjoe Gortner. He played the psycho badguy in the 1978 movie, When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder. Starring Hal Lyndon. He was in the Evel Knievel movie, Viva Knievel. In which a little boy throws down his crutches and cries out: "Yer the reason I’m walkin', Evel! YER THE REASON!" Starring Evel Knievel. He played the psycho National Guardsman in Earthquake! Starring Charlton Heston. The house I grew up in was in that movie. Heston drives by it on the way to his movie home, in the Hollywood Hills. There’s our house! That’s all I remember Marjoe from, but I do remember him.


He was a child-preacher. Lookit.

I don’t really have much to say. It just totally creeps me out. These little performing children, approximating so amusingly the gestures that some adult has drilled into them. The intonations and phrasings. Like performing animals, or computer-generated lip movements on talking babies. Like dead little JonBenét, who’d be a senior in high school now, looking just like a real woman. Hold still, JonBenét, while I put your lipstick on! No, it’s not pornographic in the slightest. But I did once catch a glimpse of a photo of a child, a little boy I think, being anally raped -- so it appeared. (Do not, say, mistype “hotmail” when you’re going for email.) I had to ditch that computer. And yes, I am so completely capable of murder. Perversions. So many perversions.

The name Marjoe derives from a combination of the names of his parents. Mary and Joseph. Git it? They must have been geniuses. Marjoe dropped out of the Pentecostal preaching business as a teenager, and shacked up with an older woman in San Francisco, then became part of the Hippy movement. Then he started preaching again, and in the early ’70s filmed an exposé of the conman tricks common in that circle. It won an Oscar, and apparently has been found and revived for the art house audience in Manhattan.

Ah well. I don’t know why it bothers me so much, that clip. It is true that I was for a time in my early formative years a little performing homunculus, so cute, so talented. What could be wrong about being made to learn a skill? I wonder sometimes though why I have to feel so deeply the pain of other people. I wasn’t ever strangled to death. I wasn’t anally raped, that I remember.

It’s Marjoe’s birthday today. He’s 64.


J

Self Evident Truths

I qualified for Harvard. And Stanford and Princeton. I told the story here once, alluding to why I went to a state college. It's another of those bitter tales of selfishness and betrayal. No matter. Thirty years ago. The point is that we owe, as well as take. In families, and in society. But we are not owed everything. There are things that we are owed because of the reality of natural rights -- parents must look to the best interest of their children, for example. But generally we are owed what we earn, and not just what we desire.

We are not owed happiness. We are owed the right to pursue happiness. It is a limited right. The rapist finds a sort of happiness, and the molester, and the criminal in general, in the exhilaration of their abuses. We don't have to get fancy with words to understand that they have no real right to be happy, as they see it. Philosophy takes us only so far, and then we just have to resort to moral sensibilities. Decency does not depend on verbal acuity, for its truth to be known.

So I was reading just now a well-written analysis of Libertarianism by Michael Kinsley. It's right on the money, for all that it's penned by someone who's clearly left of center. A former editor of The New Republic, and current writer for the Washington Post. So, yes, a lefty. No matter. We should learn from everyone who's right. And even from those who are wrong. This guy is right. Mostly. I wouldn't bother to note any of this except for one concluding passage of his.

After describing various elaborate Libertarian private enterprise schemes to circumvent and replace government laws and regulations -- such as Ron Paul's plan to legalize the sale of unpasteurized milk -- Kinsley concludes that there is indeed such a thing as the "right of a few idiots to be idiots. That right deserves respect. But not much." Yes. I might suggest however that "respect" is not quite the correct word. Toleration, perhaps?

Kinsley continues: "Extreme libertarians believe [that government-mandated redistribution] is immoral or even unconstitutional, and even more moderate libertarians disapprove of government social welfare programs as an infringement on the freedom of taxpayers. But freedom is only one of the two core values our nation was built on. The other is equality." Correct, so far. "Defining equality, libertarians tend to take a narrow view, believing that it means only political equality with no financial aspects." There it is. The poison pill.

Our nation was not built, in any way whatsoever, on any supposed "core value" of financial equality. The failed communal ethos of the Plymouth Colony? -- winter decided that issue, with starvation. If you will not work, you shall not eat. Does Kinsley mean some vague allusion to the Progressive Era and the Robber Barons? Our nation had already been built by then. And taxes aimed at taking money from the great industrialists, coal and iron and railroad tycoons, were in no way meant to create financial equality. The aim was to tap into a large source of revenue so that the government would have more funds; to build infrastructure, perhaps, or boondoggles -- never to fritter away on the poor, who are always with us. Those funds were never used for welfare, for income redistribution, until FDR's New Deal and Johnson's Great Society.

Kinsley slipped his socialist precept into his analysis. He had been so sensible, so right, up to that point, that like a greedy walleye trout we might gulp down the hook along with the bait. Gack ... or, if it is your inclination, Yum. The lessons are self-evident, and I shan't explicate them. I suppose they are ... in any case, we hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal. That they should be treated as equals before the law. That they have the right to pursue happiness. That happiness is not assured. That an equality of results is neither promised, nor desired. Rugged or not, we are individuals, and we are to be respected, if at all, always for what we have earned, and never for what we have been given.

Charity is a virtue. Welfare is a tax. There is room for both. But this nation was founded on virtue, and in opposition to tax.


J

Spontaneous Utterance

Hillary was in La Salsa Vevosa or El Cholo Povrecito or La Colon Caliente or some such ethnically oriented eatery yesterday when a little man said through a hole in the wall that his wife was an illegal, and what would Hillary do about that? Hillary’s mouth sprang into action, and she annunciated the profound leftist truism, “There are no illegal women.”

Well, first, let’s notice her bigotry. It is through such unconsidered assumptions that the heart is revealed. Women? Who says the man’s wife is a woman? Here Hillary is yammering on about “change” all over the place, and she’s so limited that she doesn’t even understand that marriage is not between only a man and a woman. How retro. Shameful, even. I bet she thinks there are only two genders. Y’know what she is? She’s a gaycist. A closet gaycist. We always suspected as much.

But the intention of her statement was to affirm that the United States is no longer a sovereign nation. A Hillary presidency would remove any distinction between legal immigrants and invaders, between citizens and anyone else at all. Borders? Such an outré notion. Even the cliché of a melting pot is too restrictive. A mud puddle -- that’s what so-called America would be.

The idea of ownership is ever so obnoxious to these liberals. What’s up with that? I think it must be other people’s ownership, though. Hillary kept, after all, the millions of dollars she made from, say, her autobiography. No sharing of the wealth, there. The scores of millions bill has made from his speaking engagements, to Arabs and Red Chinese, and socked away in bank accounts and investments and Elvis portraits on velvet and the like -- he's keeping it. It’s other people’s property that they hate.

It seems that this nation is viewed as just that, property, which, as a very wise man has observed, is something the left hates. Who was that very wise man, you ask? Why, none other than myself, your humble author. This nation is mere property. That’s all it seems to mean to them, to whom property is theft. They would right this wrong by stealing from the rich, and the middle class, and the working poor, and giving to the, uh, well, not the poor -- the indigent? -- no … the wastrels? -- drug addicts? -- entitlement whores? The unworthy. The losers. The lazy destructive gimme-gimme haters. You know -- the constituency of the left.

We’ll just have to disagree. Some of us, more toward the right, don’t see this nation as mere specifically-located dirt. There is something, well, sacred in our conception of what a nation is. It has been sanctified by the blood of patriots and the blessings that countless millions, citizens and immigrants, and natives in their foreign lands, have received from this nation. That’s how we see it -- not without flaws, but precious and worth respecting and defending. Like your mother.

The big current lie is that this is a nation of immigrants. No. Wrong. This is a nation of citizens. I know plenty of immigrants. They have become citizens, and God bless them for their shared love of this land -- they are no longer immigrants. Some aspire to citizenship, and we welcome them as new-found brothers. They don’t make America great. America would be great without them. They make their contributions, which are respected, and which are owed. Same as you, and me. Immigrants? We love them. Illegals?

Los Angeles has an ex-gangsta mayor who asserts that this city was built by immigrants. Wrong. It is true that there was, once upon a time, a tiny insignificant little cow-town by the name of El Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles, back in the days when burros were the primary mode of transportation in these parts. I suppose immigrants built that pueblo -- Spaniards and Mexicanos who migrated north into the relatively virginal territory of the island of California. I mean, it wasn’t built by Indians, that pueblo ... unless they were slaves. This city was no more built by immigrants than this nation was. It was built by citizens, and by those who aspired to be citizens. The Pueblo? Every Spanish-speaker resident in California when it became a territory of the United States automatically became a citizen of the United States.

As for the illegals, when they came here they understood that they were repudiating the option of citizenship, and the laws that uphold it. The kindest truthful thing that can be said about the illegals is that they are selfish. They jumped the queue, ahead of those people who had the character and the decency to stand in line. Do we need them? No we don’t. There are lawful immigrants, real immigrants, who can do entry level jobs and unskilled labor. That is, after all, always how it’s been. What’s changed? Well, alas, we have. We’ve stopped loving the very principle that has given us our greatest blessings -- the principle of the rule of law.

There is a whole major political party dedicated to the arbitrary interpretation of our Constitution -- they pretend it is a “living, breathing document.” A lie. It is a monument set in stone. The process by which it changes is not mutation, as with a living thing, not the whim and mood of a judge who imagines himself a legislator. Rather, the process by which the Constitution changes is through being amended. But that’s too much trouble, for the left. They would do as they wouldst.

There are no illegal women? I won’t go over that ground again. I did so, long ago -- the silly word-games they play. There is illegal behavior. There is an illegal status. For a group that thinks there could be such a thing as a hate-crime -- which is an emotion crime, which is a thought crime -- for a group that thinks the number of times you flush your toilet is their business -- for a group that would make a man continually ask permission of a woman, that he may continue to make love to her ... these people have a problem understanding the need for visas and green cards? I guess that’s because it involves the wrong kind of emotion.

Hillary identified herself by her spontaneous utterance. Illegals? Maybe she cares about them and maybe not. Who could ever know? But what is clear from her verbiage is that she is a liberal. We know it not by her words alone, but by their meaninglessness. No illegal women? Who ever said there were such things? The thing that arose from Hillary's heart is not merely nonsensical. Many things we say under pressure are garbled. What we see, though, here, is that she does not care about meaning. She makes it up as she goes.

In a world where there are real enemies, here they are, inventing things to fight against.


J

Why I Am a Racist

Alright. I admit it. I’ve tried to hide it, but those of you who have read these pages will have seen through my pathetic mewling subterfuges. I am a racist. Such a racist. I know most people think that’s a bad thing, but allow me to make my case. It’s really a good thing, you see, my racism and how racist I am. So let me list some of the many excellent reasons why I’m so right about this racism thing that I’ve been talking about just now.

Racism 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.

I trust my meaning has been clear? So that’s a number of excellent reason why it’s so good for me to be a racist. Oh. Look at it this way. Uh, if Evolution is a fact, then some of us must be more Evolved than others. Right? It seems so obvious to me. It's logic, stupid. Because mutations are an individual thing, get it? And, uh, it’s clear that we don’t all share the same genes, now do we -- or we’d all look the same. Since we don’t look the same, we must be different, and we must have different genes. And this clearly obvious fact must be very significant, or we wouldn't look different now, would we. Looks are so important. How could we tell each other apart if we all looked the same? How would we know I was better than you? Some of those different genes that make me better and you worse will be more primitive. It’s stupid, logic. If you shave an ape, what color is it? That's right -- white. I'm not sure what my point is, but it seems significant. So the race with the newest genes like mine must be the most Evolved. And being Evolved is the best thing. Obviously. Less Evolved people are more like animals. Who can argue with that. It’s so clear. So which is the most Evolved race? Obviously, I am. Anyone could see that. Do I have to spell it out? Okay, I will then.

There are the sun people, and the mud people. We are bright and shining and radiant, while the mud people are stupid and like animals. And they’re all dirty too. I’m right about that, right? Or maybe they’re the sun people, like they like the sun, working out in the sun like cows, and I’m the, uh, ice people, where we have to live by our wits and be so smart because the fruit isn’t just hanging off the trees for the animals to eat. Yeah, I think that’s what I meant. And the muddy sun people are not all bad, but the sunny ice people … uh, maybe I mean the cloudy ice people -- the snowmen, no, uh, the star people, yeah, I like that, the starmen who are Evolving into a higher phase of cosmic consciousness and leaving this material plain behind to unite with the solar energy of interplanetary harmony, like a celestial convergence, which is so cool.

So that just about proves it. Any idiot can see how right I am about this. Which brings me to Ron Paul, whose Newsletter
published the idea that “order was restored to Los Angeles after the 1992 riots when blacks went ‘to pick up their welfare checks.’” Another of his newsletters says, "The criminals who terrorize our cities -- in riots and on every non-riot day -- are not exclusively young black males, but they largely are. As children, they are trained to hate whites, to believe that white oppression is responsible for all black ills, to 'fight the power,' to steal and loot as much money from the white enemy as possible." Another says that carjacking is the “hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos.” Ebony and ivory. It goes on to say that “...I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming.” Man, that is so true. Everybody knows it. The blacks are only one of the races of which I am so much better than them because I’m different and an Evolved Star Child, like Jesus or Krishna.

Ron Paul says he has “no idea” who wrote the articles which were published under his name. It’s a mystery, you see -- like how I’m supposed to tolerate living in a world with so many inferior people polluting it. That’s why I support abortion. Kill all the inferior babies. It’s a great plan. They’d just grow up to be criminals and addicts. You know it’s true. They’re all the same. Rapists and sodomites. Hatred is good.

What? You think this is parody? You think I've been insincere? Nobody could fake this. You can't fake logic, dude. So, uh, Ron Paul for President! And, um, Onward and Upward for the Star Children! And in my next Newsletter I'll prove how the Jews are all pawnbrokers and diamond merchants.

Intimidated? I'm not intimidated. You are.


J

Two Percent

Of the fifty primary elections to be held, our four victors are, each of them, one up and one down. One for two. They have each, respectively, won 2% of the total number of elections. And it is at this point that the geniuses of the chattering class are prognosticating the withdrawal from the field of others among the contenders. Hm. It’s the difference between first place and runner-up in one out of 48 remaining races -- but candidates who are a few points below the winners should quit?

News. What a word. I read where it came from the banners of old-time picayunes, which had North, East, West and South abbreviated up in a corner. Maybe it’s true. Seems doubtful. But something that is new should at least actually exist, right? It should have some reality? I’m wondering how it’s news, when some loudmouth blabbers about what might happen or who should do what. How is a prediction news? Have soothsayers enjoyed some resurgence of good-opinion of which I have previously been unaware? Maybe some necromancy, some séances piercing the aether between Roger Mudd and Kay-tee Couric? Perhaps Ted Koppel is hooking up with the Witch of Endor and starting their own 24 hour “news” network?

This is why I don’t watch network news. I’m not interested in car chases and lost puppies and interviews with children about their opinions on Britney. When I used to watch TV, in videotape days, I’d tape everything first and fast-forward through the commercials. Save 17 minutes an hour. There must be some technology where you can play shows back at a faster speed. I do that with audio information, play it at time-and-a-half or double-time. If we could get through the 22 minutes of “news” in 7 minutes, I might give it a try again. Well, maybe it’s already possible. I don’t even know how to use an iPod. I barely understand how ATM cards work. In fact I don’t understand -- every month I get bank charges -- I just got off the phone trying to comprehend these “transfer fees”. But I have post-traumatic stress disorder. I still insist that I’m okay at math, though.

Which brings us back, at last, to that two percent. Hillary, and Obama, and Huckabee and McCain have each won 2% of the elections. That is, they are 2% ahead of their rivals. “Should Romney Quit?” It’s an insane question. Cuz Huckabee won in terms of highest number of votes in Iowa, but he did not win ALL the votes. Some of them go to Romney -- it's not winner-take all ... it's a percentage of the delegates for the state party. Huck won 17 Iowa delegates who are pledged to vote for him at the National Convention; Romney won 12. In New Hampshire, McCain got the most votes, so he “won”. What he actually won, though, was 7 delegates; Romney won 4. Wyoming had a caucus on Saturday, and Romney won. Didn’t hear much about that, for some reason, did you. It gave him another 8 delegates. That makes him the guy with the most real votes (dude, it’s like the Electoral College). Then, because of the peculiarities of party politics, there are delegates who can choose on their own who they want -- and of these so far, Romney has six and Huckabee has three. What that means, dear child, is that Romney has 30 delegates, Huckabee has 21, and McCain has ten. So far. To win the nomination, someone needs 1,191. Huh. That’s quite a lot of distance to cover, huh.

As for Hillary and Obama, the lady senator has 183 delegates (that clinton machine, don't you know, gives her all those party votes). Obama has 78. Edwards is insignificant ... oh, and he has the fewest delegates. It is entirely possible, in our system, for a candidate to win no primary whatsoever, yet win the nomination. It's possible that the decision be made by party hacks, straw-hat wearing yahoos and yabbos who take a few moments out of their conventioneer whoring to cast a few votes. Almost anything is possible.

Hillary seems the likely girl on the left -- that's not me prognosticating, honest. I'm just looking at the numbers -- and remember how good I am at math? I told you already, weren't you listening? I'm a math genius. Six times six is thirty six. It seems like it’s just a little bit too soon to be telling Romney, the guy on the right with the most votes that matter, to quit. Next time you hear one of our media sibyls utter such a phrase, spritz her with holy water, and make sure there’s a herd of swine nearby, and a cliff.


J

One Week

My son should be back on Wednesday. My son the soldier, from Iraq. For good, hopefully. Five years is enough. I was just thinking that he's the only person that I love, that I don't have issues with. You know, family is the same as baggage. The past is pretty poisonous. Last night, just as I was drifting off, I remembered sharp as an electric shock some moment of shame from decades ago, and couldn't get to sleep. See what I mean? The closer you get, or rather the closer you have been forced to be, the more opportunity for betrayal there is. My mother is the most normal, or rather the kindest of us, and deserves all forgiveness. But she gave my room to my brother. We shared, you see, and he said, "Give this room to me." And she did. So where did that leave me? In my brother's room. I was probably seven or so. I remember the sense of outrage, of betrayal -- the distress and helplessness. My point is, the past is like that. Small things like insect bites, that get infected.

My son, on the other hand, was a joy. He was a really good kid. He wanted to please me, the way kids want to please their parents, if they're allowed to. And I saw that, and honored it. Even as a teenager he was good. Not a weakling, not a goody-goody. Just sensible. And where he wasn't entirely sensible, he was trustworthy. He'd tell me about how he and his friends would go "drifting" -- deliberately losing traction in the car. Hm. I could forbid it, or I could urge safety and trust in providence. I got lucky. I could have forbidden it, and I believe he would have honored it. But we choose our battles, and I trusted that even in something that seems foolish, he'd have, or learn, good judgment. Maybe I was wrong. He didn't get great grades, but that was really on me. I won't go into it now. Maybe I was wrong. But I wasn't going to pressure him. He did okay. Way below his potential, but okay.

I suppose I'm a powerful personality. Most people wouldn't really know that, nowadays. I don't show much of my passion. I really try to keep things quiet. Part of it is maturity, part is just having been savaged by life. My usual persona is just trying to get along. I avoid expressing strong opinions. My point is that as a father I trusted that my strength of character, such as it is, would show through, by my conduct and my habitual demeanor. There was no need for shouting or for threats. A parent's job is to prepare his child for a meaningfully successful life. I had to trust that my boy would get serious about studies when he matured into it -- the way I did, finally, after having dropped out of college several times. Aimless, you see, and without purpose. Until there's a reason.

My son is the only person that it would break my heart never to see again. I'm really tempted to delete that sentence. It's so stark. But I haven't seen my father since the mid-'90s, and he's 6 miles away. My mother is dear to me, and I do what I can for her, but we're not enmeshed. My brothers are just people I grew up with. I have a half-brother I expect never to see again, or rather, only once, at our half-father's funeral. Same with my former wife. I'll see her at my son's wedding. We'll say hello, but not have any conversations.

It's just different with my son. I'm normal, with him. I'm comfortable with him. We laugh at each other's jokes. We respect each other. We're proud of each other. We like each other. We love each other. We understand that we have our shortcomings. But he learned how do deal with my faults, by seeing my example with him. Faults are for overlooking.

So he'll be home in seven days. Christmas never meant anything to me. But I can hardly wait.


J

Horse Race

Hillary and McCain in New Hampshire. A stellar triumph, a triumphant comeback for the distaff senator and the old soldier who didn't fade away. Who would have thought that the massive, relentless clinton machine would prevail? All those millions spent, and, surprise, she won. Go figure. As for McCain, he deserves a chance. He's a politician, which means he makes deals. This is a bad thing? He's not a hard line conservative. Who is? -- that can get elected, I mean. He has a reputation for telling hard truths. As to that, I don't know. I don't pay that close attention. I hardly read the Bible anymore. I'm going to study these characters? Yes, McCain deserves a chance, which the cross-voting democrats have given him. As for the office, we shall see.

What have we learned from the Granite State? It's full of liars, for one thing. How else could the polls have been so very wrong? They had Hillary down by 13 points. She won, I seem to have heard, by three, 39% to Obama's 36. Hurrah! But what's up with that big poll error? "DEWEY WINS!" They're calling it a "surprise win", our hairsprayed doyens in the media. Why is it a surprise? Because they told us that Obama would win. So they were surprised, see, which makes it a surprise for us too.

We were supposed to forget her years, years of preparation and her millions, millions of dollars spent in that very small state. Isn't she a senator? How come she can spend all that time in New Hampshire? Because, my young friend, she has her priorities straight. America neeeeeeeds her. Now that's real patriotism. Oh, excuse me, I seem to be coughing up strings of bloody mucus for some reason. Your pardon I pray.

"The mild weather could have helped Mrs. Clinton, who gets strong support among older female voters who might be reluctant to take the trip to their polling places in stormy weather." Yep. Them old biddies like to stay at home. All except Ms. clinton. Good lord. What are our media priests trying to teach us? Their liturgy seems confusing to me. Old chicks is good? Old chicks is bad? I can't tell. And that makes me feel confused, and violated.

Monday Hillary complained about her "35 years of experience" -- it should be an asset, she thinks. "When did experience become a liability?" she wonders. Well, let's think about it for a bit. Thirty-five years ago was 1973. She was a lawyer, working for an ultra-liberal law firm. Then she was a governor's wife, then a president's wife, then a senator. So she's saying that being an adult is the same as having experience. Obama is two years younger than me. He has 28 years experience as an adult. Um. Uh. She must mean experience as an old chick.

Romney took 28%, in what is called "a possibly fatal blow to his bid for the presidency." Why would that be? There are 48 more states. Y'see, 50 all together. Get it? Like, this is the VERY BEGINNING, and these first two states are REALLY SMALL. Fatal? Did a poll tell them to say that? Well, if a poll said it, it must be true. Huckabee got 12%. Them New Hamshirites must be atheists or Jews or something. Giuliani did not campaign there, and got 9%, while Ron Paul took 8%. Where's Thompson? Check the internet.


In an unrelated story, some Iranian speedboats buzzed our warships in the Straits of Hormuz. One of our captains was about to open fire, when the Persians veered off. They threw some number of "boxes" into the water in our ships' paths, so that a course change was necessary. What ever could be behind such mysterious and random behavior? It's such a mystery to me, this randomness. Aren't people funny? Go figure. Kids, maybe? Taking their dad's Miami Vice cigarette boat out for a joy ride?

Maybe it's the famous Sailing Imams, not to be confused with last year's Flying Imams, who jumped around a US Airlines cabin, swinging towels over their heads and chanting dirges to America and positioning themselves at the exits and suchlike. I say, NOT like that at all, the Sailing Imams. Golly, why would you make that mistake? Don't you know the difference between an airplane and a speedboat? They are totally different. So why are you bringing up the USS Cole, which had a big hole blown into it by a rubber raft? Is a rubber raft the same as a cool speedboat? You're so silly. And probably a racist. Anyway, didn't you see Syriana? No, cuz nobody saw it. But if you had, you'd know who the good guys are. THEM.


Ah well. These are interesting times. Everybody seems to be racing around. Old chicks and black dudes and slick pols and Bible thumpers and faithful Moslems out for a cruise looking to drift in battleship wakes maybe so they can waterski or something cool like that. Interesting times.

But I like it. Two primaries so far, and four winners. It's not a lock. Maybe we'll have a brokered convention. Wouldn't that be neat? Cigars and smoke-filled rooms. How retro can you get? It's morning in America.


J

Spade Work

Hillary used the term, Monday. "Spadework". In some context. And this rightwing talk radio guy now is trying to say the subtext is racist. Somehow Hillary is trying to bring race into her fight with Obama -- it's what clinton-insider (ugh, what a thought) Dick Morris predicts she'll do. She's not that stupid. Alas, this rightwing talkshow guy is, well, not a fool, not an idiot -- just someone who shouldn't have a nationally syndicated show. But it's the middle of the night, here, and he's all that's on. I don't have anything against rightwingers. I prefer conservatives, but somebody has to fix the plumbing.

Spadework means "doing research" or "making preparations". Uncovering necessary information. It's used in detective stories, like, go dig up some facts. Yes, spade is also a racist term. Whence does that derive? It's first ethnic occurrence is noted in 1928, from the playing card -- black as the ace of spades. Who's that black? Might as well say white as snowball, and then call whites balls. I don't think it's all that common anymore, spade. Sort of like coon. Aren't these terms almost jokes, now? Hard to see them as anything else.

Somebody on the radio is saying spadework comes from the work of slaves, the blacks who hoed the cotton. Supposed to be an insult used by the house slaves against the field slaves. Well, I suppose it's possible. But it doesn't fit the meaning of the term as it's used now. So, if it has a different definition, how is it the same word? Seems highly unlikely. Spade has been around for longer than English. Old English, spadu; Old Frisian, spada; Old Saxon, spado; goes back to Greek, spathe, "wooden blade, paddle." To call a spade a spade is a direct translation of an ancient Greek (and Roman) proverb -- although Erasmus mistranslated it: originally it was To call a bowl a bowl.

As for Hillary, there's enough problems with her, that her enemies don't need to manufacture them. To be credible, you have to be credible. It's like the morons in New York, who demanded some bureaucrat's resignation, and got it, because he used the word niggardly. We must not bow to stupidity. Phonemes are not meaningful. Syllables aren't, either. Only words are. Like Norfolk. Pronounced NOR-fuck. I will not mispronounce it. Deal with it. And grow up. I can just hear you tittering. Not another peep.

Hillary may well be getting desperate. She has seen her inevitability evaporate like dry ice (although, ah, ahem, I must point out that, technically, dry ice does not evaporate per se, which is, uh, ahem, properly speaking to move from a liquid to a gaseous state. No. Indeed, uh, rather, ahem, dry ice would undergo ablation). Not even much wetness is left. Just maybe a few tears. But even crocodiles can cry. They can smile, and they can cry. I'm not going to find meaning in this fact, though. We've seen too much of that, haven't we. Peep.


J

No Tears

[First, for those who are following the soap opera, I have Chapter 3 posted. Almost all of the formatting, including endnote citations and notations (of which there are about 1500), and it seems all but one of the charts/ tables/ graphs, have been lost. Ah well. It's either up as these bare bones, or not at all. This chapter is of narrow application, but for anyone who has an interest in ethnology and national origins, it should be fascinating. To everyone else it should be almost incomprehensible. You have been warned.]

=====

Hillary cried last night. Why aren't we moved? Because we think it was a tactic. It seems like a manipulation. Psst, Senator -- you're down in the polls. The idiots think you're too hard. Fem it up -- say, maybe, we'll plant a question that you can cry about. Cuz, in all the speeches she made on the stump and in the Senate, about children and Iraq and lost puppies and whatever, she never did cry. Then she gets this softball question about how she feels about her defeat, and she weepily answers another question, about her passion for children and the country and how important "it" is. Sorry, butch -- too little too late, this Tammy Wynette thing. With a 33% trustworthiness rating from her own voting pool, she needs to be consistent. It was an obvious and clumsy move. Some boneheads are suggesting she'll drop out of the race if she loses two in a row. Good lord. This is her life's ambition. Of course she's weepy. But there's no way that these two first but minor primaries mean anything at all, compared to her ambition and machine.

As for her tears, if they were genuine, it was poor judgment. What is it, after all, that seems to be her strong point? If anything, it has to be her perceived toughness. And there she goes, turning on the waterworks, a few days after she loses in the first primary, and a couple of days before she's going to lose in the second. Good lord. Who is running her campaign, the Stooges? Honey, play to your strengths. You'll never be President Mommy. At least pretend to be somebody, instead of just anybody. It's called acting -- sort of like your marriage. And of course there's the warning of Muskie -- who derailed his '72 bid for the presidency, in New Hampshire of all places, by publicly crying ... or was it merely seeming to cry? No matter. It's not allowed. Don't these fools know that? I was barely in puberty at the time, and I remember it. Crying? I have nothing against it. I'm the guy who can't have a serious conversation without tearing up. But I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. What's their excuse?

And then there's Obama. I was wrong before when I said he couldn't be president. It could happen. But it would be so much more of the same. He's talking about giving people, "farmers and scientists," a chance. Hmm. Now how is he going to do that? By being a liberal politician? What "chances" does the government "give"? What law -- which by nature limits options -- is going to enhance freedom? It's meaningless. He talks about health care. Huh. How is he going to get that to happen? He's way way to the left -- how will he bridge the distance to come to some compromise with the right, to get universal health care? It's meaningless. We are not electing a dictator. Don't they understand this?

No, they don't. Neither do we. Every four years we hop on the merry-go-round, and we're surprised when it takes us nowhere. Reagan really was different, because things did change a little bit. The rest of them? You have eyes. That's why I'm moving more and more away from ideologies, toward pragmatics. I have clear goals, well defined positions. But I understand that it's not about talking pretty talk, it's about getting results. We're not electing Jesus. These are politicians, almost all of whom have egos larger than I pretend to have -- even larger than I really do have. They are flawed. I'm fine with that. Romney is another clinton -- slick. I don't care, if he can get results. Giuliani may be an adulterer, too -- you remember, like clinton. That really stinks. But he cleaned up the most crime-ridden place in the USA, and made it the safest large city. If I want a preacher, I'll go to church. I want the potholes filled and the borders secure. It would be nice if we could have both. Maybe next time.

For me there's one major issue. Borders. Here's why. A politician who gets it about the borders, gets it about Iraq. I mean mainstream pols, not isolationists. It should be painfully obvious that pols can get it about Iraq, and miss it entirely about borders. It's a security thing. Why are we busy saving foreigners, when we aren't bothering to save ourselves? The first time, they came here legally, the islamoterrorists. The next time it will be illegally. You can figure it out for yourself. A nation is defined by its borders, the way your home is defined by its walls. And a government exists, by our way of thinking, for the specific purpose of increasing the safety and potential for prosperity of its citizens. The government is hired by us to do a job, the way we would hire an accountant or a security guard. There's nothing magical or inspiring in this fact. The beauty of our system is that they work for us. If they don't, the beauty becomes ugliness. You know, like most of the rest of the world.

We are a family. We are a private club. We are a corporation. We are a gang. We are whatever analogy you care to use, that defines a group of people who come together to look out for each other, first. If you don't recognize it, it's called a nation. After we take care of our own needs, we look to the rest of the world. As a group, we take care of job one, then we take care of all the other jobs. As individuals we have the right to sacrifice ourselves. We can give away all our possessions and live among the lepers that we might bring them comfort. This is a noble and fine thing -- of an individual. But as, say, parents, we don't have the right to sacrifice ourselves for strangers. We sacrifice ourselves for our children. And as citizens, we must be devoted to that comity that has blessed us with the security and prosperity that have allowed us to nurture a loving and self-sacrificing character.

That's what I'd like to see, in a candidate. Selfishness. Not the personal kind -- the national kind. Nationalism. Us first. Pols are elected to look out for our interests. Their job is not to be elected and stay in office. Their job is to serve. It's not about emotion. It's not about compassion. It's about competence and clarity of vision. What happens to vision, when a pol starts crying? Gets sorta blurry, eh? What should happen is that our vision becomes clearer. I hope it's still that way.


J

Most Ancient Days

All right. So here it is. I seem to have decided to post some of my various books. And it is a very very very tedious project. I wrote these things in the dark ages of personal computers, using an early version of Word Perfect. Now I'm using some version of Word, but I don't seem to have a conversion tool. That was a problem. I can't really even access my old files in a meaningful way. I've switched computers so many times. I just found, last night, an online conversion tool, but all of my endnote citations are lost. I'll post anyway. Anyone who has a serious question as to sources can contact me. And you'd better be serious.

Cuz I'm VERY irritated. Blasphemous, even. How ironic. You would not believe the formatting problems I've been wrestling with for the past hours and hours and hours. I have a (painfully complex) system worked out, with too dang many steps, but there it is. And I have to go through each chapter manually to make sure it looks at least sort of presentable. I'm a very proud man, and these inevitable and uncorrectable flaws irk me. But the alternative is to remain out of print, and these materials do have worth.

First up is Most Ancient Days, my reconstruction of ancient history, two chapters so far. I won't go into it here. If you think you have an interest, you can look at its preface. I make no commitment as to how long it will take me to get all the chapters online. Eventually I suppose I'll have all of the books up. I haven't actually finished The Days of Brass and Iron. Don't know if I ever will. Life got in the way. I have most of the research done, but these things are not easy to write, and I have no reason to believe the world is crying out for it. We shall see.

I won't go into the motives and passions that drove me to write them. Enough to say that together they harmonize a full range of intellectual disciplines into a unified and I believe rigorous biblical paradigm. It is revolutionary, and unmatched in its scope. Would you expect less, from me? Haven't you realized it yet? I'm brilliant. FP is just about emotion, and a few glib observations. It's not a serious effort. These are serious, and you will be astounded and left speechless. How I pity, and envy you. How happy I'd be, if there were some luminous sage to do for me what I would do for you. But that's just asking too much. How lonely I am.

If you find something of worth in these efforts, you'd be wise to let me know. If I get the idea that nobody cares, I may not bother to go through the hassle. I don't need gratitude. I work for less than peanuts. I just don't want to be wasting my time.


J

Oh

Well. Yes, I see. Obama and Huckabee. Winners Thursday night in Iowa, which as I recall is somewhere east of Kansas-- maybe next to Tennessee. Interesting. The two least experienced players in the field. Haven't we had enough of that already? You know already that I tend to favor Giuliani. It's not the nine eleven thing. It's the New York City thing. Romney will do. I hear good things about Duncan Hunter, but we'll have to wait and see. Fred sound good, looks good, but it isn't about sounds and looks. Huckabee only sounds good, and that, only when it's about one liners. Alas, we don't need a comedian for president.

Obama is so much better than Hillary. But he can't win the Office. He's just too far to the left. He was a civil rights attorney. That's code. The right hasn't released his voting record as an Illinois legislator, because we don't want to undermine him in his bid against Hillary. But it's sure to have some poison pills in it, and it will hurt him the way Bush's drunk driving revelation hurt in 2000. His campaign theme is CHANGE and UNITY. ahem. These, both, are political pablum. They mean nothing, and by being meaningless, they represent exactly the opposite of CHANGE. As for UNITY, my, doesn't that sound nice. How will he do it? By telling conservatives to be liberals? It takes more than a smooth voice and a sincere-seeming smile to accomplish the actual work of Executive in Chief. And he's black. Not just black, but a lefty black. That means only true believers will vote for him on the left, and the racists, of which there are still quite a few -- and I don't mean whites -- will not be moved to overcome their bigotry on his account.

The smart move, and what I'd like to see, is for a serious conservative black to run. Then you get the conservatives, and you get a big chunk of the left, who will vote just to get a minority in the White House. Is this a cynical view on my part? Yes it is. Or rather, it's Machiavellian. I'm fine with that. Why aren't you? Machiavelli was right. If you don't think so, you haven't read The Prince. It's online. Give it a whirl. The point is, candidates are like babies. You don't care who they are, as long as they're yours. And I think the destroyed black community would be reinvented by having a strong, decent, conservative example in such a high office. That's your reparations. The American Dream at its finest. I pray for the day.

Iowa is the first of the primaries. It is insignificant, objectively. It gives someone a boost? Well, yes it does, but that's just because public opinion is like the first circle of Hell. Everyone is flying through the air, eternally chasing after leaves in the wind. So much emotion, so little rationality. What you have is the first lap, of fifty. Does the race go to the runner who's in the lead for the first lap? I'd venture to say the predictive power of that position is virtually zero. Its value is solely in the arithmetic. When all the ballots are counted at the conventions, Iowa will matter. All the rest of it is band music, bunting and balloons. How we love cymbals. Symbols.

Just a few idle thoughts. Did you like them? If yes, send me a dollar. It's just a small token of your esteem for me, but it would add up to millions, and I'm so worth it. I can do clapping behind the head chin-ups. You can't. And I'm so smart and good looking too. It's sickening. In fact, send me five dollars.


J

Transfats

You know by now what a wacky healthnut I am. And it hardly even matters that I'm always right about everything. It's just a little freaky, the way I am, and that makes you uneasy. I understand that. Of course I do. I understand everything. But you'll have to put aside your narrow-mindedness once more, and sit at my feet for today's lesson. How else will you come to understand what is good and right? It's what I'm here for. You're so lucky to have me. I'm like a guru or something. I'm just unbelievable. People are always telling me that.

As even you will finally have heard, transfats are a problem. They're not-saturated fats that have been altered to act like saturated fats -- solidish at room temperature. Very stable, long-lasting, high-temperature for cooking, less or no need for refrigeration, inexpensive, kosher -- and so very convenient for manufacturers and retailers. Hmm. Doesn't it seem odd that food should be manufactured? What a strange idea.

What do they do in one's diet? Raise the likelihood of heart disease. Raise bad (LDL) and lower good (HDL) cholesterol. Of course there is no bad cholesterol -- it's the ratio that's important. Transfats are demonstrably worse than animal fats in terms of heart health (understanding that transfats occur in small amounts naturally in animal fats, but do not act in the same toxic way). Risk of CHD (coronary heart disease) doubles for every 2% increase in the diet, contrasted to 15% for saturated fats. That same incremental 2% rise of transfats at the cost of carb calories increases the risk of ovulatory infertility by 73 percent.

Other problems? Evidence suggests an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, liver dysfunction, and prostate cancer. There is no consensus regarding these risks, because of the obvious confounding factor of generally poor dietary choices. Donuts have a lot of transfats, but people who eat a lot of them aren't obese or diabetic because of the transfats. These benighted souls are not likely to be eating a sufficient number of daily servings of fruits and veggies, if you get my meaning.

On the other hand, over a span of six years in two groups of monkeys with the same caloric intake, the transfat group gained 7.2% of their body weight, while the mono-unsaturated fat gained only 1.8 percent. My theory would be that the transfat calories were less available metabolically, so the monkeys responded by lowering their body temperatures, and by getting less exercise.

The NAS reports that there is no safe amount of dietary transfats. There is an opposite of an RDA -- in other words, the recommended daily allowance is zero. There is no tolerable upper limit, because any increase raises the risk of heart disease, and most likely these other problems as well. That's all ugly enough. Uglier still is the fact that transfats show up in mother's milk -- up to 7% of the calories in, of all places, Canada. That's an average. Some poor babies are getting a mouthful.

Our systems cannot readily break down transfats, so they remain in the blood much longer -- plaquing the veins, the way insane people smear feces all over their cell walls. So that's a problem. And there's all that CHD and obesity and stuff. But a more subtle problem is this. A cell is like a water balloon, with the cell membrane holding it all together. Cell membranes are made up of fats, of lipids. Cells take lipids out of the blood to build and repair the membrane. Polyunsaturated fats are ideal, because they're nice and rubbery, flexible. This is important because the cell receptors, the doors that allow nutrients and information to pass through the membranes, have to stretch open and then resume their closed shape. But a transfat, a Frankenfat, looks pretty much like an unsaturated fat, so a cell will use it just as readily. The problem is, transfats are not rubbery. They're plasticky. They take the place but do not do the job of a good lipid.

So your cells don't function in a healthy, in a youthful way. They act like old plastic milk cartons that have been out in the sun for years. Brittle. Not supple and rubbery and sexy. So your cells starve, slowly. See? The ramifications are beyond the grasp of your poor intellect. How I pity you. There is a way to fix it, sort of, your plastic body. Get plenty of omega 3 in your diet. Flax, fish oil. Little by little, the transfats will be replaced.

The FDA is sort of protecting us, by requiring labeling. But half a gram of transfats per serving gets a rating of "transfat FREE". Half a gram doesn't sound like much. But that's about 5 calories. If a serving is a hundred calories, that's 5% of your calories. So it turns out to be very much indeed. What are we, Canadian babies?

I'm writing all this, though, not because I care about you. I only care about myself. Don't you know that yet? No wonder you keep hooking up with all these abusive and emotionally unavailable boyfriends of yours. The reason I'm writing this is that I heard some talk radio guy just now complaining about how government is interfering where it don't belong. NY City has banned transfats in restaurants. More lefties and Nanny Statists poking their long noses in where they don't belong. Same with smoking bans, he says. People who don't smoke can go to another restaurant, where the owner has chosen to keep out the smoking. See? The market place at work.

A few problems with such reasoning, like children in restaurants exposed to second hand smoke, because of ignorant, indifferent or otherwise stupid parents. We don't raise other people's kids, but we look out for them. As for transfats, as long as health care is paid for by the tax payers -- and it is, to a measurable degree, even for you (are you planning on opting out of Medicare?) -- then government has the obligation to promote some sort of preventive health care. Does the government have the right to regulate a legal activity? Sex in public. There are community standards, which can forbid lawful activities.

The talk show guy questioned how the bureaucrats could say what ingredients could go in food. Well, it regulates the level of rat feces you get in your hot dogs. He might object that rat feces is not an ingredient. I would agree that it's not in the recipe, but I'd also say he's quibbling about "ingredients", and tell him to pick a word he's happy with so we can move on. I'd say that regardless of how he'd characterize tranfats, he could not say it was actual food, like nutritious, you know? I'd ask him why he thinks we should be sold things that are not food, to eat. He would resort to his conservative position, that government should stay out of it. I'd reply by pointing to the Constitution, which requires that government "promote the general welfare". I'd suggest that part of promoting health is discouraging what manifestly has an inverse and parabolic relationship between economic benefit to the seller, and health benefit to the buyer. As long as recreational drugs are unlawful, or lead paint on your child's toys, this precept would be hard to refute.

As I've said, I used to be a registered Libertarian. In many ways I still think that way. But government, by its nature, limits freedom. That's why I prefer the word liberty -- which places freedom in the responsible context of society and its many obligations and demands upon us. The savage is free. Civilized men have liberty. And adults understand that however pleasing some theory may be, about human nature, the sad reality is that almost everyone is stupid and self-destructive, and it is only the coercive force behind just laws that allows us to sleep peaceably in our beds. Transfats may seem a far cry from the midnight marauder. But they'll stop your heart just as surely, for all that they'll take decades to do it.


J

Tarbrush

Race is far less important to me than it seems to be to some of the fellas I roll with. We're quite a diverse lot, us, with a goodly representation from every habitable continent -- I'll stand in for Australia. This fact is never a problem, although it is sometimes an issue. "Team Black", don't you know -- although that abortion seems to have gone back-alley, at least for the time being. More a function of absence of opportunity than of conscience or sensibility, but we take what we can get. Point being, I expect race would be less important to me than to most others.

It's not that I'm part of the majority. In Los Angeles, I'm a minority. European roots. But I've always been a minority. I was a minority in my own birth-family. Like the Huxtable kids, on Cosby -- they were all different colors. You wouldn't understand, but I was the blond kid in my family. The towhead -- a term I absolutely loathed. White-blond. That's a good thing, right? You'd think. But there was a lot of hatred in my family, and I was the little one. So there you go. Differences are for hating, where I come from. It's something you have to grow out of.

Now my hair has darkened. Sometime in my twenties. Ash blond. Bitches and fags would say dirty blond, or dishwater. Faggots. I still think of myself as the white-haired kid, but that's phantom limb stuff. Isn't it odd though, that being God's favored fair child would work so powerfully to sensitize me to the need for empathy? Sometimes irony is a difficult idea. Not here.

Which brings me to Oprama. Obama, I mean. Heh heh. He's black. Or is it white? It's that touch of the tarbrush thing, going on. How very strange that the white racist standard has been adopted by virtually every black. And by black, I mean tarbrush black -- anyone who has any drop of African blood. How strange. Were the racists right? Are they?

Obama is being credited with self-selecting his identity. He sides with his father, African, rather than his mother, European. Let's not be stupid, here. Let's not argue about opinions. I know a fella who has precisely the same ethnic makeup as Obama. Exotic looking. He identifies as black. I didn't know where he hailed from, for months and months. But propinquity has made me think about a few things.

This is what I think. I think that if anyone of "mixed" blood -- pardon the idiocy of the terms available to me, but I know of no sensible ones -- were to identify as white, he'd be scorned by both sides. Trying to pass. Not authentic. A wanna be. Acting white. He has just as legitimate a claim to one as to the other. But racist social pressure selects for him. Sort of like high-performing black students in school. Acting white. Well? For shame.

It isn't my place to tell Obama that he's not black. Black is a culture, like Hispanic, not a genetic profile -- at least in a dual-continental situation. The fact that Obama does not seem to operate out of a black cultural paradigm, however, is irrelevant. Hillary with her bleached hair tries sometimes to sound more black than Obama does. But Hillary, of course, is not black; is it just a joke, that her husband was? In any case, Obama doesn't act black. So black is not a culture. He was raised by a white mother, black father absent -- abroad and in Hawaii, and given an elite education. How is he black?

Black is an identity. It allows, sometimes, the illusion of self-selection. Yet it is imposed. I remember broaching this subject lightly with a founder of Team Black. I questioned a few of the suppositions, and he shut it down by saying, curtly, "That's just how it is." Indeed. That is just how racism is. Not to be questioned. It must, somehow, work to somebody's good. Like self-stim movements in the insane. It comforts. It isolates and identifies. It allows for judgments and condemnations. Obama is black because he must be. Imagine what you would think, if he spoke only of his mother. The boy's trying to pass. What a confluence of shame, in the idea.

I think I've told the story of the little black boy who threw himself into the flour bin so that he would be white. My grandmother told me about him, in the '60s, as something she'd seen. I expect it's happened elsewhere. I recall, as a teacher, seeing on the playground something that will stay with me always. An elementary school. About half black, half latino. And a little black boy in a rage of tears, shouting at a little brown boy, "Nigger! You nigger!" What a sad and evil world this is.

The past lays hold of us with an unshakable grip, whether from outside the tribe or from within the smallest of social units, the family. Pain seems to be a means not only of physical, but of social control. Those who identify outside their designated group get called such sobriquets as "race-traitor." Indeed, we can divide the nations into crackers and coons, hebes and spicks, chinks and ... well, I can't think of any other group worth hating -- aboes and wogs are too obscure for my American readership, and so not hateful enough. Having so divided the world into a confusion of tongues, what is left for us but to make war? It will be all the easier, now that gene testing is becoming so easy. You can buy kits at the drugstore. And we don't even need such objective proofs. We can just hate on the strength of appearances. Just a touch of the tarbrush, and we can hate.

Hate. It's a far more powerful thing than the word's common usage suggests. I've used it lightly, here. I've used it the way a liberal uses it. Unthinkingly. I don't want to think about it anymore, though. Obama can call himself what he likes, and his people can coo and ah from the bleachers. As long as we don't think about it, it's all good. As long as it's about defused emotion, we're safe. Blacks can blame and demand welfare, "affirmative" action, and reparations, and whites -- race-identity whites like liberals and segregationists -- can enjoy the frisson of their own particular emotions.

For my part, I have no sympathy for the irresponsible culture of failure that seems to my unyielding mind to be contemporary black culture. The flaccid whites who pander and abase themselves through an Afrocentic Electra complex are incomprehensible to me. You don't need to have pride, to have common sense. After we've reached the age of accountability, there is no room anymore for blame. Societies are accountable, but there is an expiration date, and in any case, welfare has been reparations. A lot more than the cost of 40 acres and a mule have been doled out, to those who thought they should take it. Absolution? You have to be dirty, before you need to be made clean. I've always been clean.

But what do I know. I'm a guy who secretly thinks he has white-blond hair. As for Obama, he has the opportunity to reject the entitlement plantation that -- if you'll pardon the crudity -- enslaves modern American blacks. You're entitled to what you earn. You're not entitled to what I earn. Obama was raised white. His mother got up in the pre-dawn to sit at the kitchen table with Obama that she might tutor him into special advantage. That's not black or white, that's responsible. If that were his message, I'd vote for him.


J

The "Hahpi Nueyere" Rites of the Natives of the Valley of San Gabriel and Environs

I'm told the natives have recently observed some species of calendrical change regarding their sacred year. Perhaps this would explain the great festival which they have just completed (to commemorate the event?). I have been unable to ascertain the precise determinative cause of the festivities -- whether related to some great tribal storied occurrence (a battle or natural calamity), or perhaps an alignment of celestial bodies in what is perceived to be a fortuitous arrangement. The natives clearly have been unable to calculate accurately the day of the winter solstice, which confirms our observations regarding their general intelligence. Experience continues to demonstrate that logic plays a best only a small role in matters public or private, and rational conduct cannot be predicted.

Pyrotechnical displays, of varying magnitudes, seem to be requisite elements of their rites. Many primitive societies employ clangorous rituals involving cymbals, drums and whistles, believing the noise to be potent in warding off evil spirits. Perhaps this provides insight into the nature and justification of the faya erwer akx [?] that so boisterously unsettled the night air.

Reports confirm that natives throughout the region gathered outside their domiciles, clustering on their paths and byways during the very darkest hour of the night. At this time they engaged in loud chanting, singing and dancing, accompanied by the consumption of ceremonial fermented beverages. Sundry costumes, gaudy and of garish design, had been donned -- perhaps in imitation of their conception of the denizens of the unseen world, or in an attempt to frighten off malignant supernatural forces. Young children were observed to hurl large round flat crackers, called tuworteyass, at the curious wagons in which natives enclose themselves while traveling. We might postulate that such propitiatory food would be analogous to votary offerings to demons or dragons -- but such speculation transgresses the available data.

These midnight revels were followed in the daylight hours by processionals dominated by a series of large carts, one following hard upon the other, and each elaborately decorated with a riot of colored or flowering vegetable matter. Many of these carts were surmounted by dignitaries -- perhaps priests and priestesses, although some cultures so honor the victims of imminent blood-sacrifice to the presiding chief deity. The dignitaries were arranged en tableaux upon the platforms, as if depicting episodes from some racial epic known to them all, the meaning of which will perforce remain obscure to an outsider.

The final public ceremony takes place in a large amphitheater, a sort of clearing encircled by tiered observation stations in which a large fraction of the native population gathers to observe the actions below. The rite itself is clearly a species of stylized battle, in which the largest of the tribes young males repeatedly run at each other until they collide. A small leather totem, called the Futtahb-Ahl, appears to have a significant role in the drama. Sometimes the Futtahb is cradled by a chieftain, who protects it by running away from pursuing adversaries. At other times, however -- perhaps in its aspect as Ahl -- the totem is hurled away or kicked as if it were anathema.

It is hypothesized that the Futtahb-Ahl is modeled on the human head, being oblong or ovoid in shape and of equivalent dimensions, and symbolizes a duel-natured divinity, one good, to be cherished, and the other evil, and reviled. Another suggestion is that the sacred object represents a newborn or fetus, with the sacred play representing the spirits or fates that will dictate its future. The rules governing the behaviour of the acolytes remain obscure, however, and warrant further investigation.

All these ceremonials cluster around a central conception that time has somehow changed. This is a surprisingly sophisticated concept, and suggests contact with a higher civilization. The nature or significance of this presumed temporal change is unknown.


J

Hobgobblin

It's just stupidity. It's like they just don't get it. About Romney, presidential hopeful Romney. For my part, I don't have a strong opinion. He looks the part of president? Please. If you take a look at the toads who have slept in the Lincoln Bedroom, starting with Lincoln, you must understand that looks have nothing to do with it. If it were about looks, I should be Divine Emperor of the Universe. Cuz I'm so gorgeous, you understand. Just lovely. Radiant. Aaaahhh. But it's not about looks. So get over me. Anyway, I'm not running.

As for Romney, here are some of the complaints.

"If you followed only his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, you might imagine Romney as a pragmatic moderate with liberal positions on numerous social issues and an ability to work well with Democrats. If you followed only his campaign for president, you'd swear he was a red-meat conservative, pandering to the religious right, whatever the cost. ...

"As a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1994, he boasted that he would be a stronger advocate of gay rights than his opponent, Ted Kennedy. These days, he makes a point of his opposition to gay marriage and adoption.

"There was a time that he said he wanted to make contraception more available -- and a time that he vetoed a bill to sell it over-the-counter."

"The old Romney assured voters he was pro-choice on abortion. 'You will not see me wavering on that,' he said in 1994.... These days, he describes himself as pro-life."

"There was a time that he supported stem-cell research.... These days, he largely opposes it. As a candidate for governor, Romney dismissed an anti-tax pledge as a gimmick. In this race, he was the first to sign."

But wait! There's more! Romney said he's been a hunter "pretty much all my life," referring to the one time he went hunting as a teen, and then again the only other time he went hunting, last year. Well, yes, there is a way that counts as most of his life. He never received an NRA endorsement as governor, as he claimed on Meet the Press. His father did not march with MLK -- his claim to that effect was only “figuratively”. He claimed to have cracked down on meth labs, but actually the proposals got bogged down in the state legislature.

Gracious. Sounds like sometime within the past decade-and-a-half he's changed his mind on some number of things. Sounds like he has sort of an Al Gore exaggeration slash imagination problem going on. Whatever shall we think?

To complain that a man says he's a hunter when he is not might be missing the point. I've never been hunting. I shot a bird once in my early teens with my grandfather's .22, and felt weird about it, and never did it again. I'm not a hunter, and don't want to be one. But in a society that eats meat, hunting cannot be immoral. It seems to be a right, and I'm fine with that. I'm on the side of the hunters, and not on the side of the ... whatever they'd be called ... the gatherers. In this sense, I'm a hunter. Maybe that's what Romney is as well.

The non-existent NRA endorsement? Embarrassing, but Romney is not a genius. To misstate an easily checked fact is hardly shrewdness. It sounds more like an error of memory, a misremembered conversation. The antecedent was that the NRA phone banked for him, acting, then, for his election and in his interest. Not an explicit endorsement -- an implicit one. Likewise with marching with MLK. His father was active in the civil rights movement. Standing shoulder to shoulder is a sort of marching, don't you suppose?

To complain about changes of position is to lament the fact that Romney was wrong, and now he's right. Unless it is his sincerity that's being questioned. Is Romney then a liar? On what grounds would the charge be made? That he has changed his positions? He did so openly. Where then is the lie? Is it feared that he will be untrue to his current positions? In what way? He will go back to an old position? That would indeed make him, effectively, a liar. We must always be concerned that a politician will betray his promises. But our concern should be rooted in something other than constitutional cynicism. To say that all politicians are such-and-such is to say that all of a certain race are such-and-such. The only safe generalization is that all politicians must make compromises to achieve results. Those who don't would be called either ex-politicians or dictators.

This is America. It doesn't matter what you used to be. What is the American Dream, but that the future will be better than the past? -- and does that not also apply to our character? What sort of a man never changes his mind? We grow. Flip flop doesn't mean to change one's mind; it means to do so for reasons of political expedience. What child is it, who doesn't understand the difference between wavering, and the change of heart that comes after long soul-searching? Who is it that was never wrong? What should we think of a man who never admits an error? It is not a betrayal of principles to broaden one's understanding. Part of intelligence resides in the ability to adapt to new information and circumstances. Adaptability is not a moral failing.

I'd vote for Romney, I suppose. He's just a businessman. I want Giuliani. If Huckabee gets the nomination, I'll vote for Hillary -- it's no more anti-American, and it will be better for the country in the next election, since it would be the Dems rather than the so-called Republicans who are utterly discredited. The long view matters. Huckabee, reportedly, said that illegal immigration gives Americans a chance to make up for slavery. Whatever else this is, it is not conservative. Go, Hillary!

I think Giuliani has the force of character and the international respect to do great things. Flawed? Of course. If we get close enough, we'll always have to hold our noses. But we're hiring someone to get a job done. I don't care how he parts his hair, and I don't care about his core values. His heart and his state of grace is his own affair. I care about what he'll do. Aren't we past the need for perfection? Heroes are not for worshiping.


J

Curing the Gay Virus

If you're wondering why I've been silent these past few days, it's that I've had a virus. Not me, my computer. I was downloading some gay porn the way I like to do all the time, and a little box came up that told me my computer was in danger unless I clicked on it, and it wouldn't go away until I did, so I did. And then an icon appeared on my desktop, and I wondered what it was, so I clicked it. And then something asked to be installed, so I installed it. And then a big yellow bookkeepper ... I mean balloon kept appearing and clacking and beeping, and every time I clicked it I was taken to a religious site that tried to convince me about how wrong it is to masturbate all the time the way I do to gay porn about chubs -- that's the big men -- and bears -- all covered with sexy hair. I call them chubears. Sounds like a late '50s rhythm and blues group. Laddies and gentlemen, the RamRod is proud to present the golden stylings of the Chubears! So? What's up with that? Everyone has nose hairs, so don't go pointing your snotty fingers at me. It's just not right, is all. I'm forty ei... I'm thirt... I'm twenty nine years old, for crying out loud. I'm old enough to celebrate my own choices.

From now on, I'm going to write "W" as "UU". It's a Neuu Year's resolution. In fact, I'm going to uurite entirely phonetically starting ... nahuu.

Soh eneeuuayee, Ahee fauund aee fiks fohr thuh vahyeeruhs. Heer'z wuht euu duu. Kahpee thuh adres fruhm thuh relidzhuhs gayee-bashing sahyt or uuuhtevr, end payst it intuu guuguhl. Suhmbuhdee haz had thuh prahbluhm bfor, end haz postuhd aee fiks. It ohnlee took mee tuu dayeez tuu tayeek cayr uv it. Fantastik.


Dzhayee