I've done nothing for a week and a half. I suppose I have to confess that I just made that stuff up, about my new best friends. A lad can dream. The reality is that I've been assiduously idle, and am feeling the effects. They are wonderful. For the first time in years I've had consecutive days without ache. And now I'm afraid to start up again. Soft? I've grown soft? What of it? And who are you to judge me? It's laughable. The mouse squeaks and hears a roar. How the vultures envy the eagle. Pile on, jackals -- you think the lion is wounded. You disgust me.
These things move in cycles, of course. Something I've been neglecting: part of the cycle is to rest. It's been more than two years since I took more than two days off. Not smart, and here I am, a certifiable genius. And also very handsome. I've been driven, you see. I'm a little concerned that it's damaged me. What if I never stop aching? What if I've crossed some line? The rest of my life, with sore knees? Didn't think that's what I was signing up for. I expect it's just activity dependent though. And driven for what reason? Toward what end? Certainly not about ass-kicking. That's why I was a runner -- option one. It's more of an intellectual than a character issue, though, the running. I'm too stubborn to run. A little self-destructive, in fact. More than a little. But that's another story, for which there is not going to be time, ever.
Me, a bad ass? It's very kind and insightful of you to think so, but no. There are always people who are going to be more mobile than I am, and faster, and more agile, and more technical, and who have more skill. I am what I am, not actually gifted, just a plodder, at this little sport we call bjj. But nobody is likely to be stronger, pound for pound, and the height is a big help, usually. The age thing is nothing but a handicap, but then again that is after all the reason that I'm immobile and slow and graceless. If I'd played this sport 30 years ago, there'd be movies about me now. My world is large, but not large enough for regrets of this sort. Reality does not yield to regret. I will take the body that I have, long of bone by nature, and strong through diligent application of effort, and I will do with it the best that I can. In a life where everything is a metaphor, age will be a mountain to scale.
So yesterday I sat and watched them roll where my son goes. He cut his hand, and is taking a week off. It looked good. Looks like I might get a workout. Maybe I'll get beaten. Maybe more than rarely. Maybe a lot. That would be good. In the back of my mind, I'm always a little afraid I'll lose. Strange, isn't it. Ego. How pathetic. Part of my old programming. I had to fight a lot when I was a kid, and I never won. But that's another story, for no other time. I suppose I'll start rolling again next week. Gonna work out tonight. It's been three weeks or so. But I'm feeling mahvelous. And I'm very handsome.
Bet you're missing all my insightful insights into politics and God. Bear with me. The spirit moves me when it will. I do take requests, so if you're dying to know the true facts about some mystery that's been puzzling you, I'd be pleased to clear things up for you. Pushing back the darkness -- it's what I do. I'm certifiable.
J
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
Free Tibet
It's almost a joke, isn't it. Pet cause of lefty Hollywood pretty boy cliche Richard Gere. And these pinkophiliacs who are currently attacking wheelchair-ridden grannies as they roll along with the Olympic torch -- pathetic. But you know what? Free Tibet. What the hell is Red China doing with Tibet anyway?
Well, Red China is an expansionist empire. It is the third largest country by occupied territory because it has occupied territory. East Turkmenistan, for example. They took it because they could. Same deal with Tibet. In 1950 they invaded two of its eastern provinces, and in 1959 took over the whole country. The gall, after all, of the Tibetans rising to throw off the communist yoke. Imagine that. The Red Chinese have killed some one million Tibetans. Six million to go. What's six million? Hitler did it in a walk.
We, of course, have to choose our battles. We cannot stop every oppression. Reality is what it is. Our national interest has to top the list. Justice matters. It's just that some justice matters more than others. Am I wrong? No, sadly, I'm not wrong.
I was watching the TV the other day, another of those starving babies in Africa shows. You know how dramatic speeches are made in movies, about paying any price to save even one innocent life? Lies, of course. Lies lies lies. Because it would cost you about a quarter a day to save some starving African baby, and you don't pay it. If you cared, you'd give everything you had, to save as many as you could. I feel that way sometimes. But it's only a feeling. My actions say, let them starve. Same with you. We suck.
What could possibly be more important that saving starving babies? Or on a so much vaster scale, opposing the power that shoots Buddhist nuns in the back and then parades the gunmen as heroes through the streets of Peking? Yes, Peking. Communists do tell me how to pronounce my own language. They do, however, tell Tibetans whether they can live or die. It's ever so complex, of course, what with Red China depending so much on the watershed and natural oh so exploitable resources of Tibet. Free Tibet? Not as long as Tibetan chromite is free. And all that wonderful lithium. And you can't really ever get quite enough boron, eh? The Red Chinese need their copper, the way we need our mocha latte.
But what I'm really doing is complaining about the way the world is. The sky is blue, water is wet, and life is fundamentally unfair. Sometimes we can be happy, but only by ignoring the full spectrum of human experience. Such ignorance must be a good thing, because happiness is a good thing. When Jesus said the poor are always with us, did he mean that starvation and murder are always with us? Why must that be, when where is so much wealth in the world?
We'll never all be equal. But isn't there some minimum standard? Some reasonable sacrifice, of some few pennies out of our dollars, that can go at least to the most egregious sufferings? Taxes won't do it. We know this, because taxes don't do it. Bureaucracies waste.
...
Well, it's tomorrow now. We had a power outage last night. The whole quadrant went black. Transformer blew. I tried to write by candle light, but the terrorists won that battle. Anyways, I've forgotten whatever it was that I was writing about, and I'm too busy and important to cast my eyes three inches above to refresh my magnificent mind. Ah well, your loss. I'm sure I had more to say, all of it wise. But there's nothing to be done about it. Sometimes I just get dark, and the only thing that can break the cycle is a blackout.
J
Well, Red China is an expansionist empire. It is the third largest country by occupied territory because it has occupied territory. East Turkmenistan, for example. They took it because they could. Same deal with Tibet. In 1950 they invaded two of its eastern provinces, and in 1959 took over the whole country. The gall, after all, of the Tibetans rising to throw off the communist yoke. Imagine that. The Red Chinese have killed some one million Tibetans. Six million to go. What's six million? Hitler did it in a walk.
We, of course, have to choose our battles. We cannot stop every oppression. Reality is what it is. Our national interest has to top the list. Justice matters. It's just that some justice matters more than others. Am I wrong? No, sadly, I'm not wrong.
I was watching the TV the other day, another of those starving babies in Africa shows. You know how dramatic speeches are made in movies, about paying any price to save even one innocent life? Lies, of course. Lies lies lies. Because it would cost you about a quarter a day to save some starving African baby, and you don't pay it. If you cared, you'd give everything you had, to save as many as you could. I feel that way sometimes. But it's only a feeling. My actions say, let them starve. Same with you. We suck.
What could possibly be more important that saving starving babies? Or on a so much vaster scale, opposing the power that shoots Buddhist nuns in the back and then parades the gunmen as heroes through the streets of Peking? Yes, Peking. Communists do tell me how to pronounce my own language. They do, however, tell Tibetans whether they can live or die. It's ever so complex, of course, what with Red China depending so much on the watershed and natural oh so exploitable resources of Tibet. Free Tibet? Not as long as Tibetan chromite is free. And all that wonderful lithium. And you can't really ever get quite enough boron, eh? The Red Chinese need their copper, the way we need our mocha latte.
But what I'm really doing is complaining about the way the world is. The sky is blue, water is wet, and life is fundamentally unfair. Sometimes we can be happy, but only by ignoring the full spectrum of human experience. Such ignorance must be a good thing, because happiness is a good thing. When Jesus said the poor are always with us, did he mean that starvation and murder are always with us? Why must that be, when where is so much wealth in the world?
We'll never all be equal. But isn't there some minimum standard? Some reasonable sacrifice, of some few pennies out of our dollars, that can go at least to the most egregious sufferings? Taxes won't do it. We know this, because taxes don't do it. Bureaucracies waste.
...
Well, it's tomorrow now. We had a power outage last night. The whole quadrant went black. Transformer blew. I tried to write by candle light, but the terrorists won that battle. Anyways, I've forgotten whatever it was that I was writing about, and I'm too busy and important to cast my eyes three inches above to refresh my magnificent mind. Ah well, your loss. I'm sure I had more to say, all of it wise. But there's nothing to be done about it. Sometimes I just get dark, and the only thing that can break the cycle is a blackout.
J
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Buying Water
I'm a plodding reader, something left over from my elementary school days. I had undiagnosed learning disorders. But Amazon dot com is my drug. I've spent more time in my life reading than sleeping. It's hard to find really good writing though. Very hard. If it's just about the information, I don't mind workmanlike prose. But if it's fiction, it's mostly about style, with me. I've read a lot of old pulp stories, and the writing is so cloyingly bad it's perversely delicious. But it has to be really bad, to be good. My point is, I do look for good writing.
One genre I like is sports writing -- specifically boxing. I'd rather read about it than watch it. Only if it's good writing, though. So when I came across A.J. Liebling, I practically plotzed. That led me to other of his efforts, most recently his book, "The Press." I have it in the first edition, paperback original, 1961, and the paper is so acid it is literally crumbling in my hands. Can't open the book all the way or pages fall off the spine. But it's a most peculiar artifact for reasons other than this.
In those long ago days, it seems -- and I know it's hard to believe -- the press, specifically the newspapers, were dominated, corruptly, FROM THE RIGHT! Liebling is simultaneously indignant and gleeful as his observes, for example, that 84% of the publishers were Republican. He observes that four out of five papers endorsed the Nixon-Lodge campaign over that of Kennedy-Johnson. First of all, Lodge? But the case Liebling makes is interesting, and thought-provoking. Indeed, from the safe vantage of a half-century down the line, we can risk some objectivity, and must concede the merit of his case. A biased press is a bad thing.
I wonder if Liebling, a man of the left, would have the same extravagance of outrage today, when the press, expanded in its scope beyond the mere printed word, is 90% skewed to the left. I have to believe it would be so. He decries the steady loss of independent newspapers, observing the inexorable trend toward one-paper monopolies in any given city. He outlines the reasons, or rather the process by which this occurred, and his case is not uncompelling, where one paper gobbles up another simply to avoid the competition, and then enjoys the benefit of cutting back on its actual news reporting -- so expensive, don't you know, to pay all those reporters, when feature pieces will do just as good a job to fill up column space.
We can't argue with the profit motive, but it does tend to strive toward the monopoly, which provides great profit with the least amount of effort ... and of service.
That's why the terms liberal and conservative are so unsatisfying.
Fifty years ago, I would have been called a liberal. You too, most likely. We understand that greed is foundational to the human condition. Greed for individual profit, which is stereotypically a "conservative" concern, and greed for ideological conformity, from the Left. Given this continuum, prudence requires that we gauge our society's relative position, and urge it toward some sort of human and workable balance. We conservatives like small government, because bureaucracies are dehumanizing, inefficient, and profoundly corrupt. But we understand, as our predecessors did not, that the profit motive unmollified by a social conscience is just as cruel and dehumanizing. Without government regulations, we'd still have children working in coal mines and a six day work week, 12 hours a day, at a dime an hour. We'd have raw sewage and chemical waste pumped into rivers. They want to drink our milkshakes. Thus, regulations are not only not bad, in themselves -- they are necessary. Human nature is what it is, irresponsible and selfish, and we need laws to inhibit vile conduct. Regulations are just laws for companies.
On the flip side, the excesses of the left are just as poisonous. Exclude communism and such odious examples. Take unions. A good idea, necessary, and a counterbalance to the robber baron mentality that strong men may bring to their quest for profit. But featherbedding and strong-arm intimidations and mafia corruption and the suppression of secret ballot voting -- how vile. I can't join the robber barons, and I refuse to join the corruption of the unions. Given such required independence, I'd just have to call myself conservative, since the only actual choice, the only thing that I could join, I wouldn't.
The left has the media monopoly now, as the right did in grandpa's day. Things change. The internet mammal is destroying the MSM lefty dinosaur. Good. When the pendulum swings to the right, finally, at long last, again, in the media, I may need to counterbalance myself just a bit toward the left. Because it isn't labels, ever, that matter. It's principles. Individual responsibility has to be countered by social accountability. This doesn't mean peecee word police. This means not adversely affecting someone else's health. It means being more responsible for your own kids than you are for anyone else's.
It's about wisdom. That requires a certain flexibility. It requires moderation in almost all things. It means dodging between license and repression, tolerating what is annoying while opposing with all your might what is toxic to virtue and liberty. We draw the lines where we may, and understand that we may have to redraw them. We understand that this is the dance of integrity that every mature adult must join. Children think that words are rules. Men remember the hard lessons of experience.
All decent people have a social conscience. Whether that concern is expressed through individual generosity, or facelessly and corporately through taxation and entitlements is as it may be. If personal responsibility is insufficient to care for the truly needy, then government interference is not inappropriate. But taxation is not a virtue, where personal charity is. And, as they say, bad money drives out good. The point is that we do what we can do, and if enough people involve themselves, the world gets better. If not, government gets bigger.
What was a conservative, 50 years ago? Someone who was for segregation? I beg to differ. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed with a higher percentage of Republican than Democrat votes. But the Solid South is largely responsible for that disproportion: Democrats being, historically, the party of White Supremacy, Segregation, Racism and Slavery. Alas, Barry Goldwater blundered on an epic scale when he opposed the civil rights bill. As a consequence of that error, American blacks abandoned the Republican party and flocked to the Democrats, and thus brought disaster down upon their heads. I feel the urge to coin a new cliche -- something about politics and strange bedfellows ... I'll work on it. The point is, conservative isn't just about keeping things as they are. It's about self-reliance. Likewise, liberal isn't solely about license and abortion. It's about a helping hand. Who among us is not both liberal and conservative? The devil is not so much in the details, as in the excesses.
In speaking of press monopolies and the indulgences of the information moguls, then almost exclusively positioned on the right, Liebling said, some 50 years ago, "My point here is not only that there are evil, or potty, or capricious, as well as benevolent, despots, but that it is evil that men anywhere be forced to depend, for the information on which they must govern their lives, on the caprice of anybody at all. There should be a great, free, living stream of information, and equal access to it for all. Our present news situation, in the Untied States, is breaking down to something like the system of water distribution in a casbah, where peddlers wander about with goatskins of water on small donkeys, and the inhabitants send down an oil tin and a couple of pennies when they feel thirst."
Eternal verities. Only the devils change. The poles have shifted, and north is south. The press is a Bolshevik bastion. Now outrage must emanate from the right. Well, we're not good at outrage. We're the quiet desperation crowd. In the back of my mind is some biblical verse about craving truth like a dying man craves water. That's why we have such contempt for the leftist press. They lie, and call it righteousness. The way, most likely, the right used to do, fifty years ago.
J
One genre I like is sports writing -- specifically boxing. I'd rather read about it than watch it. Only if it's good writing, though. So when I came across A.J. Liebling, I practically plotzed. That led me to other of his efforts, most recently his book, "The Press." I have it in the first edition, paperback original, 1961, and the paper is so acid it is literally crumbling in my hands. Can't open the book all the way or pages fall off the spine. But it's a most peculiar artifact for reasons other than this.
In those long ago days, it seems -- and I know it's hard to believe -- the press, specifically the newspapers, were dominated, corruptly, FROM THE RIGHT! Liebling is simultaneously indignant and gleeful as his observes, for example, that 84% of the publishers were Republican. He observes that four out of five papers endorsed the Nixon-Lodge campaign over that of Kennedy-Johnson. First of all, Lodge? But the case Liebling makes is interesting, and thought-provoking. Indeed, from the safe vantage of a half-century down the line, we can risk some objectivity, and must concede the merit of his case. A biased press is a bad thing.
I wonder if Liebling, a man of the left, would have the same extravagance of outrage today, when the press, expanded in its scope beyond the mere printed word, is 90% skewed to the left. I have to believe it would be so. He decries the steady loss of independent newspapers, observing the inexorable trend toward one-paper monopolies in any given city. He outlines the reasons, or rather the process by which this occurred, and his case is not uncompelling, where one paper gobbles up another simply to avoid the competition, and then enjoys the benefit of cutting back on its actual news reporting -- so expensive, don't you know, to pay all those reporters, when feature pieces will do just as good a job to fill up column space.
We can't argue with the profit motive, but it does tend to strive toward the monopoly, which provides great profit with the least amount of effort ... and of service.
That's why the terms liberal and conservative are so unsatisfying.
Fifty years ago, I would have been called a liberal. You too, most likely. We understand that greed is foundational to the human condition. Greed for individual profit, which is stereotypically a "conservative" concern, and greed for ideological conformity, from the Left. Given this continuum, prudence requires that we gauge our society's relative position, and urge it toward some sort of human and workable balance. We conservatives like small government, because bureaucracies are dehumanizing, inefficient, and profoundly corrupt. But we understand, as our predecessors did not, that the profit motive unmollified by a social conscience is just as cruel and dehumanizing. Without government regulations, we'd still have children working in coal mines and a six day work week, 12 hours a day, at a dime an hour. We'd have raw sewage and chemical waste pumped into rivers. They want to drink our milkshakes. Thus, regulations are not only not bad, in themselves -- they are necessary. Human nature is what it is, irresponsible and selfish, and we need laws to inhibit vile conduct. Regulations are just laws for companies.
On the flip side, the excesses of the left are just as poisonous. Exclude communism and such odious examples. Take unions. A good idea, necessary, and a counterbalance to the robber baron mentality that strong men may bring to their quest for profit. But featherbedding and strong-arm intimidations and mafia corruption and the suppression of secret ballot voting -- how vile. I can't join the robber barons, and I refuse to join the corruption of the unions. Given such required independence, I'd just have to call myself conservative, since the only actual choice, the only thing that I could join, I wouldn't.
The left has the media monopoly now, as the right did in grandpa's day. Things change. The internet mammal is destroying the MSM lefty dinosaur. Good. When the pendulum swings to the right, finally, at long last, again, in the media, I may need to counterbalance myself just a bit toward the left. Because it isn't labels, ever, that matter. It's principles. Individual responsibility has to be countered by social accountability. This doesn't mean peecee word police. This means not adversely affecting someone else's health. It means being more responsible for your own kids than you are for anyone else's.
It's about wisdom. That requires a certain flexibility. It requires moderation in almost all things. It means dodging between license and repression, tolerating what is annoying while opposing with all your might what is toxic to virtue and liberty. We draw the lines where we may, and understand that we may have to redraw them. We understand that this is the dance of integrity that every mature adult must join. Children think that words are rules. Men remember the hard lessons of experience.
All decent people have a social conscience. Whether that concern is expressed through individual generosity, or facelessly and corporately through taxation and entitlements is as it may be. If personal responsibility is insufficient to care for the truly needy, then government interference is not inappropriate. But taxation is not a virtue, where personal charity is. And, as they say, bad money drives out good. The point is that we do what we can do, and if enough people involve themselves, the world gets better. If not, government gets bigger.
What was a conservative, 50 years ago? Someone who was for segregation? I beg to differ. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed with a higher percentage of Republican than Democrat votes. But the Solid South is largely responsible for that disproportion: Democrats being, historically, the party of White Supremacy, Segregation, Racism and Slavery. Alas, Barry Goldwater blundered on an epic scale when he opposed the civil rights bill. As a consequence of that error, American blacks abandoned the Republican party and flocked to the Democrats, and thus brought disaster down upon their heads. I feel the urge to coin a new cliche -- something about politics and strange bedfellows ... I'll work on it. The point is, conservative isn't just about keeping things as they are. It's about self-reliance. Likewise, liberal isn't solely about license and abortion. It's about a helping hand. Who among us is not both liberal and conservative? The devil is not so much in the details, as in the excesses.
In speaking of press monopolies and the indulgences of the information moguls, then almost exclusively positioned on the right, Liebling said, some 50 years ago, "My point here is not only that there are evil, or potty, or capricious, as well as benevolent, despots, but that it is evil that men anywhere be forced to depend, for the information on which they must govern their lives, on the caprice of anybody at all. There should be a great, free, living stream of information, and equal access to it for all. Our present news situation, in the Untied States, is breaking down to something like the system of water distribution in a casbah, where peddlers wander about with goatskins of water on small donkeys, and the inhabitants send down an oil tin and a couple of pennies when they feel thirst."
Eternal verities. Only the devils change. The poles have shifted, and north is south. The press is a Bolshevik bastion. Now outrage must emanate from the right. Well, we're not good at outrage. We're the quiet desperation crowd. In the back of my mind is some biblical verse about craving truth like a dying man craves water. That's why we have such contempt for the leftist press. They lie, and call it righteousness. The way, most likely, the right used to do, fifty years ago.
J
Friday, April 4, 2008
Silda Spitzer
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the press. You've heard my husband, Gov. Spitzer, express his regret over this matter. You've seen me stand by him, literally and presumably symbolically. But I do not feel that it is my silent presence only that is appropriate, so I'm taking this time to express a few ideas.
My husband has disgraced himself, shamed his family, and betrayed me. He has violated his marriage vows, not to mention the laws of the state over which he acted as chief executive, the highest law enforcement office in the state. He has extravagantly and infamously squandered his family's financial resources on prostitutes -- money that could have served the interests of his children. Let no one here presume to think that he is forgiven, that my presence by his side is an indication that he is not accountable or that his marriage is not in the gravest peril. His career as governor of New York is over. The future of his marriage is in my hands, as it has been in his. He obviously did not value it. I do.
I am the betrayed spouse. My husband clearly finds whores more attractive than me. Perhaps some of you women can understand how demeaning this is. Perhaps some of you men can empathize. I gave up a promising law career to devote myself to this man, and he has repaid my sacrifice by sneaking around like a coward and sniffing like a dog up to sluts -- engaging in the pathetic subterfuge of which we all have become aware. Oh no, he has not heard the last of this. He is not forgiven. As to whether or not he will be, that isn't the question. Yes, I will forgive him. The question is, will I chose to remain married to him. Some of you will recall that infidelity is grounds for divorce. And some of you will think that my standing here while he resigned in disgrace is an indication that I will continue to be the victim of his faithlessness.
You see, it is complicated. I have loved this man. I bore his children, I supported and consoled and encouraged him, I was his lover and his wife and his friend, and this was not enough for him. Whose failing is that? Mine? Yours?
Do not mistake my self-control for indifference. Do not think my relative calm means there will be no change. My husband has called ruin down upon his head. How much ruin remains to be seen. Only his actual repentance, if I may use the word, can possibly save him from complete ruin.
You see, I still love this man. I love him through the pain he has caused me and his children. He has proven to be a poor husband. I hadn't known that until recently. I know him to be a good father. Because of my love, and his love for his children, and his possible love for me, I am standing here by his side today.
But I could not stand in ashen-faced silence, one of a long series of betrayed political wives who for reasons of devotion or expedience share their disgraced husband's perp walk. I do not know what lies in store for my husband or this marriage. I do know that I will not accept any further betrayal. My husband has assured me of his regret. So there's that, his words. What he does in the future will reveal his true intentions. I'm willing to give him this chance. Love is like that -- it extracts a price, and then another.
I've spoken about myself, here, and about my husband, on terribly personal matters. The nature of these circumstances has made public what should be private. But my purpose hasn't been just to explain myself and express my pain. My real purpose is this: I urge both partners in a marriage to honor their spouse, with patience and faithfulness, with love and tenderness. If you have cheated, consider my pain, and the shame of my husband, and stop cheating. You did not marry your wife that you should betray her when you felt like it. And if you have been betrayed, I urge that you require honesty, and when it comes, forgive, and if it doesn't come, understand that your relationship is over, and no amount of fearful tears are sufficient to indicate true sorrow. Only change proves repentance.
That's all I wanted to say. If I had stayed silent by this man's side, no lesson would have been conveyed. Now you know. It's so easy to look at the faces in the news and project anything your imagination creates onto them. But I am a real person, with real feelings. My husband forgot that, for a time. Now everyone is reminded of it. We all want respect. We don't deserve it until we give it to those who have earned it.
Thank you. I will not be taking questions.
S
My husband has disgraced himself, shamed his family, and betrayed me. He has violated his marriage vows, not to mention the laws of the state over which he acted as chief executive, the highest law enforcement office in the state. He has extravagantly and infamously squandered his family's financial resources on prostitutes -- money that could have served the interests of his children. Let no one here presume to think that he is forgiven, that my presence by his side is an indication that he is not accountable or that his marriage is not in the gravest peril. His career as governor of New York is over. The future of his marriage is in my hands, as it has been in his. He obviously did not value it. I do.
I am the betrayed spouse. My husband clearly finds whores more attractive than me. Perhaps some of you women can understand how demeaning this is. Perhaps some of you men can empathize. I gave up a promising law career to devote myself to this man, and he has repaid my sacrifice by sneaking around like a coward and sniffing like a dog up to sluts -- engaging in the pathetic subterfuge of which we all have become aware. Oh no, he has not heard the last of this. He is not forgiven. As to whether or not he will be, that isn't the question. Yes, I will forgive him. The question is, will I chose to remain married to him. Some of you will recall that infidelity is grounds for divorce. And some of you will think that my standing here while he resigned in disgrace is an indication that I will continue to be the victim of his faithlessness.
You see, it is complicated. I have loved this man. I bore his children, I supported and consoled and encouraged him, I was his lover and his wife and his friend, and this was not enough for him. Whose failing is that? Mine? Yours?
Do not mistake my self-control for indifference. Do not think my relative calm means there will be no change. My husband has called ruin down upon his head. How much ruin remains to be seen. Only his actual repentance, if I may use the word, can possibly save him from complete ruin.
You see, I still love this man. I love him through the pain he has caused me and his children. He has proven to be a poor husband. I hadn't known that until recently. I know him to be a good father. Because of my love, and his love for his children, and his possible love for me, I am standing here by his side today.
But I could not stand in ashen-faced silence, one of a long series of betrayed political wives who for reasons of devotion or expedience share their disgraced husband's perp walk. I do not know what lies in store for my husband or this marriage. I do know that I will not accept any further betrayal. My husband has assured me of his regret. So there's that, his words. What he does in the future will reveal his true intentions. I'm willing to give him this chance. Love is like that -- it extracts a price, and then another.
I've spoken about myself, here, and about my husband, on terribly personal matters. The nature of these circumstances has made public what should be private. But my purpose hasn't been just to explain myself and express my pain. My real purpose is this: I urge both partners in a marriage to honor their spouse, with patience and faithfulness, with love and tenderness. If you have cheated, consider my pain, and the shame of my husband, and stop cheating. You did not marry your wife that you should betray her when you felt like it. And if you have been betrayed, I urge that you require honesty, and when it comes, forgive, and if it doesn't come, understand that your relationship is over, and no amount of fearful tears are sufficient to indicate true sorrow. Only change proves repentance.
That's all I wanted to say. If I had stayed silent by this man's side, no lesson would have been conveyed. Now you know. It's so easy to look at the faces in the news and project anything your imagination creates onto them. But I am a real person, with real feelings. My husband forgot that, for a time. Now everyone is reminded of it. We all want respect. We don't deserve it until we give it to those who have earned it.
Thank you. I will not be taking questions.
S
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Boxes
I was moving some old boxes around today and came across a newspaper clipping of one of my boys. You know the way a guitar string vibrates even after you can't hear it?
Sometimes I imagine to myself secretly in my head how I might react if I met some certain people just walking down the sidewalk or in a mall. The first thing I'd think about is whether there were security cameras. I've worked through how to dispose of bodies. A chainsaw, some buckets and a few bags of cement. Leave ventilation holes so the ants can get to it. Southern California is mostly desert. How deep, the sea.
I said some more farewells Monday night, and someone suggested that it was only for a month or so. But we know that nothing is certain, and every passing could be the last. You think you're safe, you think you know your place, and your loved ones will always be there, or if not, there will be time to say goodbye. You think there is justice, that only the guilty are condemned, and that truth is a protection, and that some means of vindication will be found. You think that hope will influence reality. No pain has ever troubled your heart, that could not be soothed by a sweetness on the tongue or some distraction of ear or eye.
Did you see the story about the woman hurt in a traffic accident? Brain damage. WalMart covered her health care until she won a lawsuit, then sued for reimbursement. WalMart just sent the family a letter saying it was relenting. Shamed into it, no doubt. Shame is a good thing. But the woman has lost her capacity for short term memory. So every time she asks how her son is doing, the family has to tell her that he was killed in Iraq. And she weeps with fresh grief, as if it were the first time. What was her sin, for such damnation?
Whatever we do, we do beneath the broad and star-filled heavens.
J
Sometimes I imagine to myself secretly in my head how I might react if I met some certain people just walking down the sidewalk or in a mall. The first thing I'd think about is whether there were security cameras. I've worked through how to dispose of bodies. A chainsaw, some buckets and a few bags of cement. Leave ventilation holes so the ants can get to it. Southern California is mostly desert. How deep, the sea.
I said some more farewells Monday night, and someone suggested that it was only for a month or so. But we know that nothing is certain, and every passing could be the last. You think you're safe, you think you know your place, and your loved ones will always be there, or if not, there will be time to say goodbye. You think there is justice, that only the guilty are condemned, and that truth is a protection, and that some means of vindication will be found. You think that hope will influence reality. No pain has ever troubled your heart, that could not be soothed by a sweetness on the tongue or some distraction of ear or eye.
Did you see the story about the woman hurt in a traffic accident? Brain damage. WalMart covered her health care until she won a lawsuit, then sued for reimbursement. WalMart just sent the family a letter saying it was relenting. Shamed into it, no doubt. Shame is a good thing. But the woman has lost her capacity for short term memory. So every time she asks how her son is doing, the family has to tell her that he was killed in Iraq. And she weeps with fresh grief, as if it were the first time. What was her sin, for such damnation?
Whatever we do, we do beneath the broad and star-filled heavens.
J
My New Best Friends
Well, there's, uh, Jamison, a 500 pound Guatemalan who used to own a, uh, body piercing parlor. He specialized in subcutaneous implants simulating saurian ridges and amphibial nodes. He's much fatter than anyone else I've ever met. Anyone else who presumes to fatness is a mere sylph, the fatness of whom becomes in comparison as tall grass before a driving wind. He has memorized the internet, if you get what I mean.
Then there's Khareem, a slender man of indeterminate ethnicity, perhaps from the Kalahari, who must be the smoothest criminal I've ever even heard about. He is an expert in the folklore of the American southwest, and owns all the Zane Gray novels, in first editions. He is addicted to chocolate éclairs.
There's Jan, too subtle for words to characterize, but who seems to be a chi master and initiate in some arcane body-distorting discipline involving long staves of yew. I only know about it because someone whispered it into my ear. I was asleep at the time, so maybe I dreamed it.
Davis is an enfant terrible who has taken the evangelical world by storm, having earned his D.Div at Fuller Theological Seminary as a teenager and is now publishing revolutionary work on nomothetic heuristics. He saved me from being raped, for which he has earned my eternal admiration. He saved me from being raped when he didn't rape me.
There's the occasional Jenkins, whom nobody has ever heard speak. He communicates through a series of intuitively grasped gestures and expressions, mostly involving finger twitches and eyebrow motions. There's a rumor that he once killed a dog by hypnotizing it into thinking it was on fire. We're all a little afraid of him.
Ron is so pretty I want to have his babies.
There's Devon, who brings a harp to class and accompanies the rolling with the most heavenly glissandos. He's an expert in Balinese dance, and often interrupts himself to perform spontaneous turns on the mat. He holds the San Gabriel Valley speed record for toe-raises -- on a par with hummingbird wings.
Enormous Lenny suffered a tragic ripsaw accident some years ago, and was a multiple self-amputee until he was reconstructed out of legs and torsoes. He is incapable of bending at the waist, since he has no waist, but he has the strength of six ordinary men, or eleven really weak men. He once devoured, in one sitting, a Shetland pony.
Yep. I'm so happy now. These dudes are much better than those other dudes that I used to hang with, back when I was all lame and stuff. I don't know why I bothered wasting all that time caring about those other dudes. I'm so much happier now. It's great. I must have been crazy. I'm so happy. These dudes are the bomb. I'll never have to care about anyone ever again. I've learned my lesson. Screw them all. Nobody cares about me, and I don't care about anyone. Yep. Heh heh. I'm so happy.
J
Then there's Khareem, a slender man of indeterminate ethnicity, perhaps from the Kalahari, who must be the smoothest criminal I've ever even heard about. He is an expert in the folklore of the American southwest, and owns all the Zane Gray novels, in first editions. He is addicted to chocolate éclairs.
There's Jan, too subtle for words to characterize, but who seems to be a chi master and initiate in some arcane body-distorting discipline involving long staves of yew. I only know about it because someone whispered it into my ear. I was asleep at the time, so maybe I dreamed it.
Davis is an enfant terrible who has taken the evangelical world by storm, having earned his D.Div at Fuller Theological Seminary as a teenager and is now publishing revolutionary work on nomothetic heuristics. He saved me from being raped, for which he has earned my eternal admiration. He saved me from being raped when he didn't rape me.
There's the occasional Jenkins, whom nobody has ever heard speak. He communicates through a series of intuitively grasped gestures and expressions, mostly involving finger twitches and eyebrow motions. There's a rumor that he once killed a dog by hypnotizing it into thinking it was on fire. We're all a little afraid of him.
Ron is so pretty I want to have his babies.
There's Devon, who brings a harp to class and accompanies the rolling with the most heavenly glissandos. He's an expert in Balinese dance, and often interrupts himself to perform spontaneous turns on the mat. He holds the San Gabriel Valley speed record for toe-raises -- on a par with hummingbird wings.
Enormous Lenny suffered a tragic ripsaw accident some years ago, and was a multiple self-amputee until he was reconstructed out of legs and torsoes. He is incapable of bending at the waist, since he has no waist, but he has the strength of six ordinary men, or eleven really weak men. He once devoured, in one sitting, a Shetland pony.
Yep. I'm so happy now. These dudes are much better than those other dudes that I used to hang with, back when I was all lame and stuff. I don't know why I bothered wasting all that time caring about those other dudes. I'm so much happier now. It's great. I must have been crazy. I'm so happy. These dudes are the bomb. I'll never have to care about anyone ever again. I've learned my lesson. Screw them all. Nobody cares about me, and I don't care about anyone. Yep. Heh heh. I'm so happy.
J
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Vermin
I hardly feel like trudging through this muck again -- it all seems so superfluous. But let's go through the motions. Obama and his comment over the weekend. Someone asked him about his feelings on abortion. Well, we know about that already. He has a 100% rating from the abortionist lobby ... you know, Planned Parenthood -- organized by Margaret Sanger to exterminate the black and other inferior races. You think I'm kidding? This stellar organization has since expanded its portfolio to be against all races ... well, no, not the animal races, just the human race. But I digress. PP is so very much in favor of Obama, since he is so in favor of them. They're the sugar in each other's coffee. We should write a song about it.
Anyways, Hugh Hewitt was going on about this sound byte. Some dude queried Obama on the matter, and he said, "Look, I got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals. But -- if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at age 16. So it doesn't make sense to not give them information."
Well, of course the thing to latch on to there is the idea of punishment. Mothers are punished with babies. You know, the way teenagers who have sex in slasher movies are punished ... only it's the babies who get slashed. Did you know that babies are a punishment? Obama's two daughters must be punishments. Could I be wrong? Unwanted babies are punishments, and wanted fetuses are babies. Or something. Anyway, the fetus has no intrinsic value. It's entirely optional. Like the humanity of, oh, say, Africans in the slave market. If they're on the block, not quite human. If holding the whip, human. Get it? Perfectly logical, if you accept the premise, of: humanity is debatable.
Babies are not punishments. Neither are they blessings. These are such arbitrary labels, after all. What babies are, universally, in the animal kingdom, are duties.
Obama is a bright guy, and he realized even as the words slipped from his lips what would be made of them. So he immediately clouded the issue with a non sequitur, conflating abortion with sex ed. The question wasn't about 'giving them information.' And, obviously, the link between abortion and STDs -- properly, VD -- the link is not as solid as glib consideration would make it seem. Both may result from intercourse, but it is as much as to say that air causes cancer -- living things need air, and may get cancer. Um, well, no? I could labor through the logic of it, but why bother. Upshot is, pregnancy is not a punishment. Put more poignantly, life is not a disease.
And then there's this idea of morals and values. Just what precisely, I wonder, is Obama going to teach his little girls about moralsandvalues? It's a tricky issue for me to talk about, because I don't want to go laying any heavy head trips on y'all. We will, all of us, fail to live up to our moralsandvalues, where ever we may have learned them. But what Obama must intend on teaching his little girls is that when they might slip and fall and make some mistake, one of their moralvalues is that the pregnancy may be terminated. That's his value, after all. And if that choice is included in his values, then teen pregnancy can't really be immoral. So why bring morality into the discussion of abortion? There is a public debate, but there wouldn't be a debate going on in Obama's own mind, or in his moral instructions to his children.
If that reasoning seems muddy, it's because Obama's thinking is muddy. Abortionists have muddy thinking on the matter. If you disagree, please, please tell me where I'm wrong. I'll be sarcastic with you only if you're sarcastic with me.
Ah well. I told you I didn't want to jump through these tiresome hoops. It's always the same old circus. Words are useless, and thinking is hard. But how else will anyone come to an understanding of the magnitude of this issue? We kill babies in America. Legally. I'm all for legal killing. Wars. Executions. You know, enemies. But babies? I don't think much about it. It would make me heartsick.
It must be a bit creepy, for Obama's daughters, though, when they finally realize that they were a choice, to which the answer could have been a bloody NO. How grateful these children should be, to have been allowed to be born. How generous the parents must be, to assume the pain of their existence. So noble.
My son was never a choice. He was always a person.
J
Anyways, Hugh Hewitt was going on about this sound byte. Some dude queried Obama on the matter, and he said, "Look, I got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals. But -- if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at age 16. So it doesn't make sense to not give them information."
Well, of course the thing to latch on to there is the idea of punishment. Mothers are punished with babies. You know, the way teenagers who have sex in slasher movies are punished ... only it's the babies who get slashed. Did you know that babies are a punishment? Obama's two daughters must be punishments. Could I be wrong? Unwanted babies are punishments, and wanted fetuses are babies. Or something. Anyway, the fetus has no intrinsic value. It's entirely optional. Like the humanity of, oh, say, Africans in the slave market. If they're on the block, not quite human. If holding the whip, human. Get it? Perfectly logical, if you accept the premise, of: humanity is debatable.
Babies are not punishments. Neither are they blessings. These are such arbitrary labels, after all. What babies are, universally, in the animal kingdom, are duties.
Obama is a bright guy, and he realized even as the words slipped from his lips what would be made of them. So he immediately clouded the issue with a non sequitur, conflating abortion with sex ed. The question wasn't about 'giving them information.' And, obviously, the link between abortion and STDs -- properly, VD -- the link is not as solid as glib consideration would make it seem. Both may result from intercourse, but it is as much as to say that air causes cancer -- living things need air, and may get cancer. Um, well, no? I could labor through the logic of it, but why bother. Upshot is, pregnancy is not a punishment. Put more poignantly, life is not a disease.
And then there's this idea of morals and values. Just what precisely, I wonder, is Obama going to teach his little girls about moralsandvalues? It's a tricky issue for me to talk about, because I don't want to go laying any heavy head trips on y'all. We will, all of us, fail to live up to our moralsandvalues, where ever we may have learned them. But what Obama must intend on teaching his little girls is that when they might slip and fall and make some mistake, one of their moralvalues is that the pregnancy may be terminated. That's his value, after all. And if that choice is included in his values, then teen pregnancy can't really be immoral. So why bring morality into the discussion of abortion? There is a public debate, but there wouldn't be a debate going on in Obama's own mind, or in his moral instructions to his children.
If that reasoning seems muddy, it's because Obama's thinking is muddy. Abortionists have muddy thinking on the matter. If you disagree, please, please tell me where I'm wrong. I'll be sarcastic with you only if you're sarcastic with me.
Ah well. I told you I didn't want to jump through these tiresome hoops. It's always the same old circus. Words are useless, and thinking is hard. But how else will anyone come to an understanding of the magnitude of this issue? We kill babies in America. Legally. I'm all for legal killing. Wars. Executions. You know, enemies. But babies? I don't think much about it. It would make me heartsick.
It must be a bit creepy, for Obama's daughters, though, when they finally realize that they were a choice, to which the answer could have been a bloody NO. How grateful these children should be, to have been allowed to be born. How generous the parents must be, to assume the pain of their existence. So noble.
My son was never a choice. He was always a person.
J
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Wind Tunnel
Just an observation about Obama. He talks so much about hope and unity. That's his whole appeal. His campaign is built on it. Then he's got this racist separatist of a preacher.
The problem isn't that Obama has a racist for a mentor. The problem is that, in 20 years, he was unable or unwilling to make a meaningful difference in that relationship. The preacher certainly was not influenced. Was Obama? Again, not really important. I don't care if Obama is a racist, in his heart. Only what he does matters. Or doesn't do. What he hasn't done is anything effective.
If he cannot bring about any sort of transformation in those with whom he has the most intimate contact, what rationale could we possible employ to suppose he could influence American society? Based on the small record of which we know, Obama has disqualified himself as the agent of the change he pretends to urge. It's all just pretty speeches. Did he make pretty speeches to Wright? Or just listen? In any case, his words had no effect. On what other basis can he claim authority?
Another blow hole politician. No thanks. At least McCain has done something in his life.
J
The problem isn't that Obama has a racist for a mentor. The problem is that, in 20 years, he was unable or unwilling to make a meaningful difference in that relationship. The preacher certainly was not influenced. Was Obama? Again, not really important. I don't care if Obama is a racist, in his heart. Only what he does matters. Or doesn't do. What he hasn't done is anything effective.
If he cannot bring about any sort of transformation in those with whom he has the most intimate contact, what rationale could we possible employ to suppose he could influence American society? Based on the small record of which we know, Obama has disqualified himself as the agent of the change he pretends to urge. It's all just pretty speeches. Did he make pretty speeches to Wright? Or just listen? In any case, his words had no effect. On what other basis can he claim authority?
Another blow hole politician. No thanks. At least McCain has done something in his life.
J
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Conditioning
Or should I say exhaustion. Absolutely grueling.
I beat the first guy handily after a minute and a half or so. Triangle. The second guy was tough. I was up on advantage for four and a half minutes, then blew it. I held him in a triangle, but just used too much energy, ineffectively, for too long. I felt my strength fading, along with my resolve, and character, and desire to live. We had to reset -- we'd moved out of our area -- and the fella used that time to gather in his will power. He passed, and mounted, and put on a choke. He didn't have the choke and we ran out of time, but I'd given up.
I could hardly stand. Tunnel vision and flashing black spots. I actually leaned on the guy as we left the mat. I had, as we say, left it all on the mat. I lay on the wooden floor next to the table and gasped like a lung fish. I was dizzy for half an hour. I had to rest twice on the way to the car. I coughed all the way home.
But it was very good. Valuable. As I say, I'm in fantastic walking-around shape, and my so-so conditioning is better than most people's elite conditioning. But these guys are not most people. He deserved the win. If I'd fought him first, I'd have taken it. But ifs are for losers ... oh, but that's me, today. First time I've lost. And it's a good thing -- not in some idealistic philosophical way. Pragmatically. Got a few things in focus. First, I really don't care much for losing. Who knew?
There's a fitness program called Crossfit, all about conditioning. My son knows quite a bit about it. The whole idea is to not specialize in anything -- just getting fantastically fit, overall. Of course, that is a sort of specializing. I don't see any great need to be optimally conditioned all the time. I think for just walking around it's better to be strong -- it's certainly easier. But when there's some specific goal, some concrete reason for it, Crossfit sounds ideal.
So the scheme my son and I discussed on the way home is to do a strength cycle, of just meeting a series of concrete goals, and then the last five or so weeks before a competition, doing Crossfit with some strength maintenance. Take the last week easy. Sounds like a plan.
I went into this competition knowing that I hadn't trained for it. It was a casual decision. The bulk of my preparation consisted in taking a few days off, and rolling light most of the past few weeks. Don't you be getting sarcastic with me. I'll show you degrees of sarcasm of which your poor mind could never conceive. The point of such rest was for me to stop aching so much. Also, disengaging a bit helps with getting a perspective. And indeed, my brain was putting some things together, as with the darce. Very elegant maneuver.
Point is, if competition is important, the key is understanding that victory is earned. It isn't some colossal effort of will during a five minute bout. It's the hours you've spent in the weeks before. All I did was roll. But the Mundials are coming up in five months, and I expect I'll give that a go. Fighting guys 20 years younger than me too. It should be after my birthday, you see. My 49th birthday.
Punks.
After I'd recovered my ability to speak and form human-like ideas in my head, I asked the score-keeper for my license back. He said that my brother had taken it. My brother. Brother. It was my son.
I'm a phenomenon. I won't be letting it happen again, gassing out like that. Anyone as pretty as me deserves to win.
J
I beat the first guy handily after a minute and a half or so. Triangle. The second guy was tough. I was up on advantage for four and a half minutes, then blew it. I held him in a triangle, but just used too much energy, ineffectively, for too long. I felt my strength fading, along with my resolve, and character, and desire to live. We had to reset -- we'd moved out of our area -- and the fella used that time to gather in his will power. He passed, and mounted, and put on a choke. He didn't have the choke and we ran out of time, but I'd given up.
I could hardly stand. Tunnel vision and flashing black spots. I actually leaned on the guy as we left the mat. I had, as we say, left it all on the mat. I lay on the wooden floor next to the table and gasped like a lung fish. I was dizzy for half an hour. I had to rest twice on the way to the car. I coughed all the way home.
But it was very good. Valuable. As I say, I'm in fantastic walking-around shape, and my so-so conditioning is better than most people's elite conditioning. But these guys are not most people. He deserved the win. If I'd fought him first, I'd have taken it. But ifs are for losers ... oh, but that's me, today. First time I've lost. And it's a good thing -- not in some idealistic philosophical way. Pragmatically. Got a few things in focus. First, I really don't care much for losing. Who knew?
There's a fitness program called Crossfit, all about conditioning. My son knows quite a bit about it. The whole idea is to not specialize in anything -- just getting fantastically fit, overall. Of course, that is a sort of specializing. I don't see any great need to be optimally conditioned all the time. I think for just walking around it's better to be strong -- it's certainly easier. But when there's some specific goal, some concrete reason for it, Crossfit sounds ideal.
So the scheme my son and I discussed on the way home is to do a strength cycle, of just meeting a series of concrete goals, and then the last five or so weeks before a competition, doing Crossfit with some strength maintenance. Take the last week easy. Sounds like a plan.
I went into this competition knowing that I hadn't trained for it. It was a casual decision. The bulk of my preparation consisted in taking a few days off, and rolling light most of the past few weeks. Don't you be getting sarcastic with me. I'll show you degrees of sarcasm of which your poor mind could never conceive. The point of such rest was for me to stop aching so much. Also, disengaging a bit helps with getting a perspective. And indeed, my brain was putting some things together, as with the darce. Very elegant maneuver.
Point is, if competition is important, the key is understanding that victory is earned. It isn't some colossal effort of will during a five minute bout. It's the hours you've spent in the weeks before. All I did was roll. But the Mundials are coming up in five months, and I expect I'll give that a go. Fighting guys 20 years younger than me too. It should be after my birthday, you see. My 49th birthday.
Punks.
After I'd recovered my ability to speak and form human-like ideas in my head, I asked the score-keeper for my license back. He said that my brother had taken it. My brother. Brother. It was my son.
I'm a phenomenon. I won't be letting it happen again, gassing out like that. Anyone as pretty as me deserves to win.
J
Friday, March 28, 2008
The Worm
My wonderful son competed today in the Pan Ams -- or as the teeshirt says, the Pan. He batted 500, which as everyone knows is unheard of in its spectacular greatness. He's fine with the experience. I just talked with him and reminded him of what he already knew -- if he'd have won more, it would have been a disaster for his jiu jitsu. As little as he's been able to train, even given as well as he does, more victories would not have been honorable. Not dishonorable, just not really earned. He'd be getting by on brains and the strength that he's worked for, but the game isn't about strength -- that's not the skill.
It's late now, although nothing like as late as I usually am, and I have to get driving for my own competition in not too many hours. I hardly ate today, which wasn't smart, since I'm at the low end of my weight class, something called middle heavy weight. But I wasn't hungry. Yes, nerves. I don't like being away from home. Don't like pressure. I've had enough pressure to last me the rest of my life. I don't like not knowing when I'm going to compete, or against whom. I don't like the milieu. I can take twenty minutes or so of watching people compete, then it's too much. I was there today for six hours. My point eludes me. It must somehow be about what a phenomenon I am, since that's what everything I write is about. Could I be trying to say I'm so brave for doing what I don't like to do? Yes, that must be it. Hardly anyone does what they don't want to do. I'm practically unique in this regard.
As I've said, I'm fighting up to 19 years younger than me. It was the 20s, today, and I looked at these guys and supposed I could do alright against them. But it's always about skill, and I only seem good, because I'm long and strong and a little scary looking. I'm pleased that the age thing doesn't seem like such a big deal. If I get my butt handed to me tomorrow, it will be because I come up against someone who can neutralize my body type. I'm fine with that. Next year I'll be good. Maybe I'll fight the 20s. But maybe I should see how I do with the early 30s -- does that seem reasonable?
I do have that dull ache of nerves in the back of my mind. Almost dread. About something that doesn't matter and about which I hardly care. There must be a profound secret to happiness buried in that assessment. But the secret about secrets of happiness is that there are no secrets. Everybody knows what to do. They know not to care about foolish things. What makes the difference? Again, a secret: there is no wisdom without grace.
How many prayers have ever made a difference? Only one instantly comes to mind -- when a certain Hebrew king prayed that his life be spared. It was, and a son was born. That son was the worst of the kings of Israel. Yes, I can think of other prayers, that brought about such heroic phenomena as the sun stopping and the heavens bleeding fire. I suppose lots of prayers are answered, and dramatically. In the Bible, I mean, when we're told all about the cause and effect. In our own lives, though? We pray only because we have faith, or the promise of faith. If good things happen afterwards, no experimental data exist to confirm our hypothesis.
We need not be bothered by this intellectual inconvenience. Everything is founded on faith, starting with perceptions and ending with the meaning of words. The Buddhists are right in almost all their precepts. It's just that beyond the illusion is not the nothingness. Beyond the illusion is reality. It always, with me, comes back to love. There is no reason for it. It's just necessary. It's in us, or not, the way faith is, and the way grace is, and the way hope is.
How my heart weeps for those who have no hope. My heart weeps for them now. I think of those who are, say, locked in their church, set on fire by those who do such things -- at this very hour, no doubt, in some African province. They pray for rescue, and they die praying, in the flames and in physical torment. Were they rescued? My faith says yes. Life is not just flames, but it is flames often. The unsatisfying doctrine that we must accept is that the flames are an illusion.
I have achieved my purpose. I am, for the moment, at peace. I will go read now, into the small hours, and sleep for a time, and rise with the sun that I may drive to the sea and fight one or more strangers. When you read this, your prayers, if any, will be too late. Pray for something that matters.
J
It's late now, although nothing like as late as I usually am, and I have to get driving for my own competition in not too many hours. I hardly ate today, which wasn't smart, since I'm at the low end of my weight class, something called middle heavy weight. But I wasn't hungry. Yes, nerves. I don't like being away from home. Don't like pressure. I've had enough pressure to last me the rest of my life. I don't like not knowing when I'm going to compete, or against whom. I don't like the milieu. I can take twenty minutes or so of watching people compete, then it's too much. I was there today for six hours. My point eludes me. It must somehow be about what a phenomenon I am, since that's what everything I write is about. Could I be trying to say I'm so brave for doing what I don't like to do? Yes, that must be it. Hardly anyone does what they don't want to do. I'm practically unique in this regard.
As I've said, I'm fighting up to 19 years younger than me. It was the 20s, today, and I looked at these guys and supposed I could do alright against them. But it's always about skill, and I only seem good, because I'm long and strong and a little scary looking. I'm pleased that the age thing doesn't seem like such a big deal. If I get my butt handed to me tomorrow, it will be because I come up against someone who can neutralize my body type. I'm fine with that. Next year I'll be good. Maybe I'll fight the 20s. But maybe I should see how I do with the early 30s -- does that seem reasonable?
I do have that dull ache of nerves in the back of my mind. Almost dread. About something that doesn't matter and about which I hardly care. There must be a profound secret to happiness buried in that assessment. But the secret about secrets of happiness is that there are no secrets. Everybody knows what to do. They know not to care about foolish things. What makes the difference? Again, a secret: there is no wisdom without grace.
How many prayers have ever made a difference? Only one instantly comes to mind -- when a certain Hebrew king prayed that his life be spared. It was, and a son was born. That son was the worst of the kings of Israel. Yes, I can think of other prayers, that brought about such heroic phenomena as the sun stopping and the heavens bleeding fire. I suppose lots of prayers are answered, and dramatically. In the Bible, I mean, when we're told all about the cause and effect. In our own lives, though? We pray only because we have faith, or the promise of faith. If good things happen afterwards, no experimental data exist to confirm our hypothesis.
We need not be bothered by this intellectual inconvenience. Everything is founded on faith, starting with perceptions and ending with the meaning of words. The Buddhists are right in almost all their precepts. It's just that beyond the illusion is not the nothingness. Beyond the illusion is reality. It always, with me, comes back to love. There is no reason for it. It's just necessary. It's in us, or not, the way faith is, and the way grace is, and the way hope is.
How my heart weeps for those who have no hope. My heart weeps for them now. I think of those who are, say, locked in their church, set on fire by those who do such things -- at this very hour, no doubt, in some African province. They pray for rescue, and they die praying, in the flames and in physical torment. Were they rescued? My faith says yes. Life is not just flames, but it is flames often. The unsatisfying doctrine that we must accept is that the flames are an illusion.
I have achieved my purpose. I am, for the moment, at peace. I will go read now, into the small hours, and sleep for a time, and rise with the sun that I may drive to the sea and fight one or more strangers. When you read this, your prayers, if any, will be too late. Pray for something that matters.
J
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Farewells
I've been making mine. My farewells. Formally. Generally it's informal. I stand at the threshold and bid anyone who notices an adieu. But today was the last go, for a while. Well, Monday will be, but one never knows who'll be there, so I counted today as a final farewell, too. Ritual matters. It's not a surprise, coming from me, is it? It should be obvious. True, I didn't graduate on stage, from my high school. I sat in the audience. I graduated of course -- with high honors, somehow. Guess I got serious those last few years. But I just didn't want to participate in the charade.
I hadn't yet come to realize the importance of rites of passage. By now our culture has hardly any initiation ceremonies left ... meaningful ones, I mean. It's just a gradual and indiscernible slide over the years and developmental stages, until you're middle aged or old, and have to use old movies as the benchmark for seminal events in your life. It was only after I'd become a father that I started to understand, about rituals. They are important not because God cares about them, but because they provide a social scaffolding for psychological structures, immaterial though they be. Get it? We need to make the subjective objective. We need some clear benchmark, today you are a man. Getting lost in the wilderness and surviving on your maternal uncle's blood is out of fashion nowadays. Graduation is about as dramatic as it gets. Prom Night. Confirmation. Such a passage through fire.
Well? People think you're weird if you don't say goodbye. I am weird, but not on purpose. So I made the rounds tonight, and shook hands with everyone there. Some guys do that every time they leave. Well, I'm a brooding Dane. I'm most comfortable staring from my grim solitude into the flames.
I'll take at least a month off. Reach some new strength goals. A 720 squat, maybe. That sort of thing. Train with my son, where ever he ends up training. Maybe do a little standup training -- striking and take-downs. Maybe I'll start to feel good again, physically. The knees, don't you know. That would be nice.
But it will be good for me to roll with new people. I'm pretty dominant where I am, and ego though I do have, it's not good to win most of the time. There are huge holes in my game because I so rarely have to be defensive. Only a few guys can put me there. No, I don't really like that. Losing makes me aggressive. Winning makes me slow.
My point? Yes, I expect I'll come back. But I don't expect I'll stay. Not without more breaks. I need to mix it up. Cuz I'm really not there just to socialize. I'm pretty goal oriented. BJJ hasn't been a goal, with me. It's served other needs. Almost ritualistic needs. See? Psychological structures need to be expressed. Every man should be a father, for example. Excluding the freaks, of course. BJJ, for me, has been an exploration of the role of warrior. Father, sage, warrior, priest. We need to be these things, to be whole. Lover, friend, hermit. God made us with hands and limbs and organs and senses. He made our souls along an analogous pattern. We must honor this fact.
Why do I write such things to you? Because I want to be known. I want to be understood, as much as such a thing is possible. I want to be respected, and looked upon with compassion, and fondness and indulgence. I want you to be my friend, and the only way I know to do that is to be honest with you. Sometimes I'm boring and sometimes I'm wrong and sometimes I'm obvious. Overlook such failings, that are common to all men. It is important. It's important because there will be a day that I'm no longer here. I'll drop out of your life the way light turns into darkness. It's always that way. And it happens, almost always, with no prior sure knowledge. There was no thought to making any farewells. The moment becomes memory, recalled with decreasing regularity until it is only an impression or a mood. But we're not moods, and we show that we value one another by observing the common rituals of courtesy that have lost their deeper meaning, until we take a moment, on occasion, to call them out of their shadows.
I don't expect that this is a final farewell. But we can never know. Such a melancholy fact, that we might interpret as exciting. Ah well. Enough.
Ciao, baby.
J
I hadn't yet come to realize the importance of rites of passage. By now our culture has hardly any initiation ceremonies left ... meaningful ones, I mean. It's just a gradual and indiscernible slide over the years and developmental stages, until you're middle aged or old, and have to use old movies as the benchmark for seminal events in your life. It was only after I'd become a father that I started to understand, about rituals. They are important not because God cares about them, but because they provide a social scaffolding for psychological structures, immaterial though they be. Get it? We need to make the subjective objective. We need some clear benchmark, today you are a man. Getting lost in the wilderness and surviving on your maternal uncle's blood is out of fashion nowadays. Graduation is about as dramatic as it gets. Prom Night. Confirmation. Such a passage through fire.
Well? People think you're weird if you don't say goodbye. I am weird, but not on purpose. So I made the rounds tonight, and shook hands with everyone there. Some guys do that every time they leave. Well, I'm a brooding Dane. I'm most comfortable staring from my grim solitude into the flames.
I'll take at least a month off. Reach some new strength goals. A 720 squat, maybe. That sort of thing. Train with my son, where ever he ends up training. Maybe do a little standup training -- striking and take-downs. Maybe I'll start to feel good again, physically. The knees, don't you know. That would be nice.
But it will be good for me to roll with new people. I'm pretty dominant where I am, and ego though I do have, it's not good to win most of the time. There are huge holes in my game because I so rarely have to be defensive. Only a few guys can put me there. No, I don't really like that. Losing makes me aggressive. Winning makes me slow.
My point? Yes, I expect I'll come back. But I don't expect I'll stay. Not without more breaks. I need to mix it up. Cuz I'm really not there just to socialize. I'm pretty goal oriented. BJJ hasn't been a goal, with me. It's served other needs. Almost ritualistic needs. See? Psychological structures need to be expressed. Every man should be a father, for example. Excluding the freaks, of course. BJJ, for me, has been an exploration of the role of warrior. Father, sage, warrior, priest. We need to be these things, to be whole. Lover, friend, hermit. God made us with hands and limbs and organs and senses. He made our souls along an analogous pattern. We must honor this fact.
Why do I write such things to you? Because I want to be known. I want to be understood, as much as such a thing is possible. I want to be respected, and looked upon with compassion, and fondness and indulgence. I want you to be my friend, and the only way I know to do that is to be honest with you. Sometimes I'm boring and sometimes I'm wrong and sometimes I'm obvious. Overlook such failings, that are common to all men. It is important. It's important because there will be a day that I'm no longer here. I'll drop out of your life the way light turns into darkness. It's always that way. And it happens, almost always, with no prior sure knowledge. There was no thought to making any farewells. The moment becomes memory, recalled with decreasing regularity until it is only an impression or a mood. But we're not moods, and we show that we value one another by observing the common rituals of courtesy that have lost their deeper meaning, until we take a moment, on occasion, to call them out of their shadows.
I don't expect that this is a final farewell. But we can never know. Such a melancholy fact, that we might interpret as exciting. Ah well. Enough.
Ciao, baby.
J
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The Message
I don't want you to think that I suppose Republicans are any better. It's all just politics, and has little to do with character. Neither side is smarter or more moral in their individuals. Not in a subjective sense. Both sides stake out their issues, and think they do it for righteous reasons. That's not how it really is, but absolutes are trickier than one would suppose. Even gravity will get an argument.
I don't care about Republicans. It's the Stupid Party. Trust me, they will blow their seeming advantage, in the face of the Dem civil war going on right now. They'll find a way. No matter. Being right and prevailing are two different things.
Some of my good buddies were having one of those who would win conversations. Jet Li or Bruce Lee. Steven Segal or Jean-Claude Van Damme. Clint Eastwood or John Wayne. Rambo or Rocky. Puerto Rico or Hawaii. Lee Marvin comes out surprisingly well. He was mean. Y'see? It's not about being noble. Nobility loses, often. I've seen it too often to doubt it. A scummy man deserves no meaningful respect, but that has nothing to do with winning. To me that has to mean that there's something more important than winning. Not at all a practical position, but everyone who has spent more than a few minutes riffling these pages will understand that I am a fool.
Republicans stake out the pro-innocent life position. Unborn babies matter, murderers don't. That's my position. Excluding, or stipulating, the requisite provisos about gray areas. Democrats seem to think it's the other way around. I don't get that, but I'm not right because my conviction is held more firmly than theirs. I'm right only if there is a God, and if the unborn are human, and if innocence matters more than convenience. I frame the issue from my perspective. The other side would frame it differently.
Same thing with economic justice. What a term. I suppose that property rights matter, because they are the foundation of freedom and justice as the Western world has understood those ideas. We will exclude such abominations as slavery. Others suppose that such protean constructs as "fairness" are what matters. And they're right, in individual lives. But for social policy, which is what politics must be about, nothing so arbitrary will do. Justice must be blindfolded, and carry a sword. When the coercive confiscatory power of the state intrudes into matters of social engineering and wealth redistribution, I would err on the side of caution. We've seen what theory made real brings. Five-year Plans, which amount to genocide. The poor, per Jesus, will always be with us. Totalitarian Utopias should be a rare thing. So I see it.
Upshot is, in this most silly of silly seasons, it is a pleasure, for once, to see the Left tearing itself apart. We on this side of the aisle have watched in dismay as our indexterous emissaries betray our principles with their greed, incompetence and indolence. Now we get to see the phoniness of the puppet people on the sinister side. Hillary playing the hero. Obama claiming he was a professor when he was only a lecturer. And the elegant and vapid tapdance of a speech he gave about race -- this, from the non-race candidate. It's good times, sports fans.
Politics matters for hardly any reasons. We like to have opinions about things, so there's that. And it does have some effect on our lives -- like a storm system, five hundred miles away. It gives us a chance to reevaluate the evidence. Take Bush, for example. Now that the war is a non-newsworthy event, we can grow tired of him. He said today something about why he signed the "good law" for economic stimulus. Even I have to comment on the ineptitude of his oral formulations. It isn't proper that we should see so clearly into the way a man's brain works. It's like watching Obama dodge the issue, claiming his upper-middle class preacher has some special right to a racist anger stemming from his privileged formative years. The logic doesn't quite track. It's like Hillary pretending to be heroic, and a victim, and experienced. Y'see? It shouldn't be about seeing them trying to put ideas into our heads.
We all need help. Rugged Individualism is a nice theory, and I'm sure there are a few people who manage it. But most everyone gets married, or at least has a main squeeze. We need each other, and we need help. But I don't suppose we are entitled to everything that we need. The condemned man is not entitled to a heartbeat. None of us are, at the end. The whole universe is under a death sentence. Puts things in perspective, albeit a broad one. My point? Nobility is no objective virtue. Entirely subjective. Like love, and honesty, and gentleness. We don't value these things because other people value them. It is in us to value them. Or not.
Who would win in fight, a democrat or a republican? The democrat, because entropy is the most unambiguous of all laws.
J
I don't care about Republicans. It's the Stupid Party. Trust me, they will blow their seeming advantage, in the face of the Dem civil war going on right now. They'll find a way. No matter. Being right and prevailing are two different things.
Some of my good buddies were having one of those who would win conversations. Jet Li or Bruce Lee. Steven Segal or Jean-Claude Van Damme. Clint Eastwood or John Wayne. Rambo or Rocky. Puerto Rico or Hawaii. Lee Marvin comes out surprisingly well. He was mean. Y'see? It's not about being noble. Nobility loses, often. I've seen it too often to doubt it. A scummy man deserves no meaningful respect, but that has nothing to do with winning. To me that has to mean that there's something more important than winning. Not at all a practical position, but everyone who has spent more than a few minutes riffling these pages will understand that I am a fool.
Republicans stake out the pro-innocent life position. Unborn babies matter, murderers don't. That's my position. Excluding, or stipulating, the requisite provisos about gray areas. Democrats seem to think it's the other way around. I don't get that, but I'm not right because my conviction is held more firmly than theirs. I'm right only if there is a God, and if the unborn are human, and if innocence matters more than convenience. I frame the issue from my perspective. The other side would frame it differently.
Same thing with economic justice. What a term. I suppose that property rights matter, because they are the foundation of freedom and justice as the Western world has understood those ideas. We will exclude such abominations as slavery. Others suppose that such protean constructs as "fairness" are what matters. And they're right, in individual lives. But for social policy, which is what politics must be about, nothing so arbitrary will do. Justice must be blindfolded, and carry a sword. When the coercive confiscatory power of the state intrudes into matters of social engineering and wealth redistribution, I would err on the side of caution. We've seen what theory made real brings. Five-year Plans, which amount to genocide. The poor, per Jesus, will always be with us. Totalitarian Utopias should be a rare thing. So I see it.
Upshot is, in this most silly of silly seasons, it is a pleasure, for once, to see the Left tearing itself apart. We on this side of the aisle have watched in dismay as our indexterous emissaries betray our principles with their greed, incompetence and indolence. Now we get to see the phoniness of the puppet people on the sinister side. Hillary playing the hero. Obama claiming he was a professor when he was only a lecturer. And the elegant and vapid tapdance of a speech he gave about race -- this, from the non-race candidate. It's good times, sports fans.
Politics matters for hardly any reasons. We like to have opinions about things, so there's that. And it does have some effect on our lives -- like a storm system, five hundred miles away. It gives us a chance to reevaluate the evidence. Take Bush, for example. Now that the war is a non-newsworthy event, we can grow tired of him. He said today something about why he signed the "good law" for economic stimulus. Even I have to comment on the ineptitude of his oral formulations. It isn't proper that we should see so clearly into the way a man's brain works. It's like watching Obama dodge the issue, claiming his upper-middle class preacher has some special right to a racist anger stemming from his privileged formative years. The logic doesn't quite track. It's like Hillary pretending to be heroic, and a victim, and experienced. Y'see? It shouldn't be about seeing them trying to put ideas into our heads.
We all need help. Rugged Individualism is a nice theory, and I'm sure there are a few people who manage it. But most everyone gets married, or at least has a main squeeze. We need each other, and we need help. But I don't suppose we are entitled to everything that we need. The condemned man is not entitled to a heartbeat. None of us are, at the end. The whole universe is under a death sentence. Puts things in perspective, albeit a broad one. My point? Nobility is no objective virtue. Entirely subjective. Like love, and honesty, and gentleness. We don't value these things because other people value them. It is in us to value them. Or not.
Who would win in fight, a democrat or a republican? The democrat, because entropy is the most unambiguous of all laws.
J
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Bully
Did you miss me? Taking it easy. Just a few thoughts. I rambled the other day about Easter -- said it wasn't the Resurrection but the Crucifixion that was the big deal. All men die. Presumably. Enoch and Elijah seem to be exceptions. Then again, no man looks upon God and lives. But generally, everyone dies. Not all men come back to life. We can name some exceptions, but the rule is that people seem to stay dead. No man, though, has died for me. No man but one. That's why the Crucifixion matters. Some men have died for some men. Only one man died for all men. Either you get it, or you don't.
Then I was listening just now to the radio, and some guy asked Chelsea on her campaign junket what she thought about the Monica Lewinsky thing -- how did it reflect on her mother's credibility. "Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question, in the maybe 70 college campuses that I've been to. And I don't think that's any of your business." You go, girl.
Yes, it does reflect on Hillary's judgment and character. And it's a question that may legitimately be asked of Mrs. clinton. And Chelsea has put herself in that arena, where almost everything is fair game. But it's not fair game. Because there's only one answer she can give, honest or not, and a gentleman would not put a young woman in that position. Even the mere appearance of loyalty is lovely, and it should be respected. Chelsea seems to have had a pretty easy ride of it. She was a gawky adolescent whom we all protected. I recall hearing only one joke about her, and it was rightly booed by the audience. There's still a tiny bit of class left, in our pop culture. For all that she's had it pretty good, that's not an excuse to invite disloyalty toward her parents. The question about Hillary's credibility is fair. The question about the daughter's opinion is not.
The only bullets Hillary is dodging are the ones about her lies re Bosnia. She pretended that she was racing under sniper fire back in '96. Alas, leisurely news coverage shows her placidly listening to a poem read on the tarmac by a little 8 year old Slavic girl -- standing, by the way, next to a smiling Chelsea. "I misspoke," excuses herself Mrs. clinton. Shades of Watergate, and yet another reason Hillary should be thankful for that wonderful time: it gave us so many useful euphemism. I misspoke myself. How really pathetic. I'm sure there must be a Democrat war hero who has run for the presidency. Andrew Jackson? I'm pretty sure it isn't and never will be a clinton. Unless Chelsea volunteers.
Has Obama been caught out in any such lies? I seem to recall that there was something, but it slips my mind. It's odd, though, how his supporters seem to be such a very strangely blame America first crowd -- even more than the usual suspects, I mean. His God damning pastor, and his proud for the first time ever wife -- and his Che poster pinning volunteers. The phrase bully pulpit comes to mind, which to my mind suggests a starting position of enthusiastic love for this country. Unambiguous, unnuanced, unapologetic love. It just seems like that is the foundation of all genuine patriotism, and patriotism seems like it must be the first requirement of all candidates for high office. If not that, why run? Power? We've seen enough of that in the world. Aren't we better than that?
Did you miss me? As I say, I'm taking it easy. I'll be competing on Saturday, against the young 30s. I'm late 40s. Yes, it makes a huge difference. I don't know why you have such a hard time believing that. I'm a bit nervous about it. Don't want to just get my ass handed to me. But it's just a way of fine tuning where I'm at. My age group was too easy. I'm not conditioned for any great physical test -- I'm in great walking-around shape, but nothing special for competition. I'll have to pull it off on will power. Not my strong suit. Just don't want to embarrass myself. No worries though. By the time the Mundials come around in August, I'll be strong again.
Did you miss me? In decades to come, scholars and biographers will scour these pages searching for clues as to the man Jack H truly was, and for insights into what formed his exceptional character. With sufficient intervening time, he will seem an almost legendary figure, too fantastic in his accomplishments to have been real. You know better. You have the privilege of a coeval existence. Don't you feel a little ashamed, squandering these opportunities as you do?
J
Then I was listening just now to the radio, and some guy asked Chelsea on her campaign junket what she thought about the Monica Lewinsky thing -- how did it reflect on her mother's credibility. "Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question, in the maybe 70 college campuses that I've been to. And I don't think that's any of your business." You go, girl.
Yes, it does reflect on Hillary's judgment and character. And it's a question that may legitimately be asked of Mrs. clinton. And Chelsea has put herself in that arena, where almost everything is fair game. But it's not fair game. Because there's only one answer she can give, honest or not, and a gentleman would not put a young woman in that position. Even the mere appearance of loyalty is lovely, and it should be respected. Chelsea seems to have had a pretty easy ride of it. She was a gawky adolescent whom we all protected. I recall hearing only one joke about her, and it was rightly booed by the audience. There's still a tiny bit of class left, in our pop culture. For all that she's had it pretty good, that's not an excuse to invite disloyalty toward her parents. The question about Hillary's credibility is fair. The question about the daughter's opinion is not.
The only bullets Hillary is dodging are the ones about her lies re Bosnia. She pretended that she was racing under sniper fire back in '96. Alas, leisurely news coverage shows her placidly listening to a poem read on the tarmac by a little 8 year old Slavic girl -- standing, by the way, next to a smiling Chelsea. "I misspoke," excuses herself Mrs. clinton. Shades of Watergate, and yet another reason Hillary should be thankful for that wonderful time: it gave us so many useful euphemism. I misspoke myself. How really pathetic. I'm sure there must be a Democrat war hero who has run for the presidency. Andrew Jackson? I'm pretty sure it isn't and never will be a clinton. Unless Chelsea volunteers.
Has Obama been caught out in any such lies? I seem to recall that there was something, but it slips my mind. It's odd, though, how his supporters seem to be such a very strangely blame America first crowd -- even more than the usual suspects, I mean. His God damning pastor, and his proud for the first time ever wife -- and his Che poster pinning volunteers. The phrase bully pulpit comes to mind, which to my mind suggests a starting position of enthusiastic love for this country. Unambiguous, unnuanced, unapologetic love. It just seems like that is the foundation of all genuine patriotism, and patriotism seems like it must be the first requirement of all candidates for high office. If not that, why run? Power? We've seen enough of that in the world. Aren't we better than that?
Did you miss me? As I say, I'm taking it easy. I'll be competing on Saturday, against the young 30s. I'm late 40s. Yes, it makes a huge difference. I don't know why you have such a hard time believing that. I'm a bit nervous about it. Don't want to just get my ass handed to me. But it's just a way of fine tuning where I'm at. My age group was too easy. I'm not conditioned for any great physical test -- I'm in great walking-around shape, but nothing special for competition. I'll have to pull it off on will power. Not my strong suit. Just don't want to embarrass myself. No worries though. By the time the Mundials come around in August, I'll be strong again.
Did you miss me? In decades to come, scholars and biographers will scour these pages searching for clues as to the man Jack H truly was, and for insights into what formed his exceptional character. With sufficient intervening time, he will seem an almost legendary figure, too fantastic in his accomplishments to have been real. You know better. You have the privilege of a coeval existence. Don't you feel a little ashamed, squandering these opportunities as you do?
J
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Possibilities
What I think is beautiful.
It represents human excellence. We can fly.
Could I do that? That's not the question. Can I try.
J
It represents human excellence. We can fly.
Could I do that? That's not the question. Can I try.
J
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Dreams of My Father
I've been getting more sleep lately. Started working out again, strength training, and I just need it. I keep a highly erratic schedule, but I'm finding I really do want 8 hours nowadays. More, but I can't justify that.
I came back after more than three years, to my old workouts. Man I got weak. At first it was discouraging. I do partial squats, only to a ninety degree bend in the knee, 10 or 12 inches, and my last goal was three times my body weight. 540. Then I got up to 605, two years ago. But I took all this time off, and when I started again 300 felt really really hard. It was discouraging, but I remembered my philosophy. A little more every time. Yesterday I was up to 425. I'll add 20 or 30 every workout, until I'm at 540 again, then I'll start shooting for my new goal, four times my body weight. Same with dips. A few weeks ago I started with 35 pounds strapped around my waist for ten, and it seemed soooooo hard. I'm up to 75, and it's not so hard. I used to do 180. How did I do that? I must have looked like an absolute freak. But it's just steady commitment. I can do that. New goal ... maybe 270. That's like a 450 bench press, so maybe I'll lower the goal. We'll see.
I took a month off from jiu jitsu, two years ago. That's why I had time and energy to shoot for a new squat goal. But a month wasn't long enough, and it fell by the wayside. Now I'm taking another month off. April. Maybe I'll take longer. We'll see how it goes. My plan is to train some standup with my son. Standup means striking. He's starting MMA, and I'm sort of over my inhibition about standing up in a fight. It always seemed like a fight, standing, and I don't want to fight. I want to play. But I've been at it three years now, and I'm sort of over the inhibition. That's progress. So I might as well get a little standup skill. You know, like boxing and stuff. I don't want to be hit. But I'm not really a coward. I'm just shy. Maybe I'll take time off enough to meet my strength goals. That'd take more than a month. Maybe my knees will stop hurting if I take the time off. Maybe when I come back there will be more people who'll train with me, hard. Maybe I won't come back at all.
My point? Well, first, I'm so wonderful. Then, we reach our goals by having them, and working steadily toward them. And we don't get discouraged by not attaining them yet. We start out as beginners, then get our skills.
But my real point is my father. All this sleep is making me dream, and I just woke up, having dreamed of my father. I was an adult, living in my father's house, a sort of castle in Hollywood. Don't ask. All sorts of people were there. Now, I haven't seen my father for 15 years. Starting to feel guilty about that. He's getting old, and none of his sons wants to be around him. It's worse than you could ever imagine. But in this dream he wrote a note to us, his sons, and I could see the manipulation behind it, but only because we knew how he is. It would have seemed like a normal, gracious letter. And even though I knew the horror, I went to see him. It was a dream. Don't ask how I was living in his house but never saw him. As a little boy I used to hope and hope that he woudn't come home. As a teen I just avoided him. Big house. It's why I still walk so quietly. Isn't that creepy?
The rest of the dream? Who cares. Just a common dream.
Here it is again, Easter, the only Christian holiday. I don't care about the homeless. They're adults, who walked the path that got them where they are. There are plenty of shelters. The church I used to go to had all sorts of outreaches. Homelessness is a choice. If it's mental illness that keeps them on the street, meds are free. Most of what we see is because of drugs and alcohol. They chose to use them, as they choose not to use shelters or meds. Am I hard? Yes. Too bad.
Kids, on the other hand, I care about. It's not odd. I used to be a father to the fatherless. Literally. I was their shelter. I won't rehash that old tale. There are other tales, but I won't go into them either. My point must be that love is a choice. A feeling too, of course, but a choice. I chose to love the helpless, rather than the irresponsible. I'm wrong about the homeless? Sure I am. So what. I'm not wrong about abandoned and abused children.
So here it is, another Easter. I could bury myself in theory and calculations, the way I love to do. Remember how I demonstrated, with many infallible proofs, how the Crucifixion occurred on a Wednesday? It did. How could that matter, when the world is so filled with misery. I've never really gotten Christmas. Present Day. How is it Christian? Jesus was born? Nothing special about that. It was a miraculous birth? No, it was just a birth. It was a miraculous conception? Yes. So Conception Day should be the big holiday. Same thing with Easter. A man came back to life? That's pretty huge. Even huger is why he died. Resurrection Day is just the proof. Crucifixion Day is the reason. That Jesus rose is good for him. That he died is good for me.
Do you see the theme, here? No, of course not. I've buried it.
Life seems empty and pointless. Things don't matter, mere things. I've lost all sense of meaning, I see no justification for suffering, I am resigned to going through the motions, holding like Job to an integrity that amounts to a vice. I can never be strong enough. I can never trust. I can only stand with my back to the wall, waiting for the next betrayal. It's only logic that allows me to believe in hope.
Is there some drug I could take, so I could sleep without dreaming? What kind of world is it, where salvation depends on death? I know the answer. It has to do with waking up. And how I love to sleep.
J
I came back after more than three years, to my old workouts. Man I got weak. At first it was discouraging. I do partial squats, only to a ninety degree bend in the knee, 10 or 12 inches, and my last goal was three times my body weight. 540. Then I got up to 605, two years ago. But I took all this time off, and when I started again 300 felt really really hard. It was discouraging, but I remembered my philosophy. A little more every time. Yesterday I was up to 425. I'll add 20 or 30 every workout, until I'm at 540 again, then I'll start shooting for my new goal, four times my body weight. Same with dips. A few weeks ago I started with 35 pounds strapped around my waist for ten, and it seemed soooooo hard. I'm up to 75, and it's not so hard. I used to do 180. How did I do that? I must have looked like an absolute freak. But it's just steady commitment. I can do that. New goal ... maybe 270. That's like a 450 bench press, so maybe I'll lower the goal. We'll see.
I took a month off from jiu jitsu, two years ago. That's why I had time and energy to shoot for a new squat goal. But a month wasn't long enough, and it fell by the wayside. Now I'm taking another month off. April. Maybe I'll take longer. We'll see how it goes. My plan is to train some standup with my son. Standup means striking. He's starting MMA, and I'm sort of over my inhibition about standing up in a fight. It always seemed like a fight, standing, and I don't want to fight. I want to play. But I've been at it three years now, and I'm sort of over the inhibition. That's progress. So I might as well get a little standup skill. You know, like boxing and stuff. I don't want to be hit. But I'm not really a coward. I'm just shy. Maybe I'll take time off enough to meet my strength goals. That'd take more than a month. Maybe my knees will stop hurting if I take the time off. Maybe when I come back there will be more people who'll train with me, hard. Maybe I won't come back at all.
My point? Well, first, I'm so wonderful. Then, we reach our goals by having them, and working steadily toward them. And we don't get discouraged by not attaining them yet. We start out as beginners, then get our skills.
But my real point is my father. All this sleep is making me dream, and I just woke up, having dreamed of my father. I was an adult, living in my father's house, a sort of castle in Hollywood. Don't ask. All sorts of people were there. Now, I haven't seen my father for 15 years. Starting to feel guilty about that. He's getting old, and none of his sons wants to be around him. It's worse than you could ever imagine. But in this dream he wrote a note to us, his sons, and I could see the manipulation behind it, but only because we knew how he is. It would have seemed like a normal, gracious letter. And even though I knew the horror, I went to see him. It was a dream. Don't ask how I was living in his house but never saw him. As a little boy I used to hope and hope that he woudn't come home. As a teen I just avoided him. Big house. It's why I still walk so quietly. Isn't that creepy?
The rest of the dream? Who cares. Just a common dream.
Here it is again, Easter, the only Christian holiday. I don't care about the homeless. They're adults, who walked the path that got them where they are. There are plenty of shelters. The church I used to go to had all sorts of outreaches. Homelessness is a choice. If it's mental illness that keeps them on the street, meds are free. Most of what we see is because of drugs and alcohol. They chose to use them, as they choose not to use shelters or meds. Am I hard? Yes. Too bad.
Kids, on the other hand, I care about. It's not odd. I used to be a father to the fatherless. Literally. I was their shelter. I won't rehash that old tale. There are other tales, but I won't go into them either. My point must be that love is a choice. A feeling too, of course, but a choice. I chose to love the helpless, rather than the irresponsible. I'm wrong about the homeless? Sure I am. So what. I'm not wrong about abandoned and abused children.
So here it is, another Easter. I could bury myself in theory and calculations, the way I love to do. Remember how I demonstrated, with many infallible proofs, how the Crucifixion occurred on a Wednesday? It did. How could that matter, when the world is so filled with misery. I've never really gotten Christmas. Present Day. How is it Christian? Jesus was born? Nothing special about that. It was a miraculous birth? No, it was just a birth. It was a miraculous conception? Yes. So Conception Day should be the big holiday. Same thing with Easter. A man came back to life? That's pretty huge. Even huger is why he died. Resurrection Day is just the proof. Crucifixion Day is the reason. That Jesus rose is good for him. That he died is good for me.
Do you see the theme, here? No, of course not. I've buried it.
Life seems empty and pointless. Things don't matter, mere things. I've lost all sense of meaning, I see no justification for suffering, I am resigned to going through the motions, holding like Job to an integrity that amounts to a vice. I can never be strong enough. I can never trust. I can only stand with my back to the wall, waiting for the next betrayal. It's only logic that allows me to believe in hope.
Is there some drug I could take, so I could sleep without dreaming? What kind of world is it, where salvation depends on death? I know the answer. It has to do with waking up. And how I love to sleep.
J
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Magic Negro
I'd never really even have thought to apply the term to Obama. Magic Negro. He is magic, but he doesn't really seem very helpful. But it sprang into my awareness when I heard what John Kerry said about Obama.
Said Kerry in a viderview, "...he has an ability to help us bridge the divide of religious extremism -- to maybe even give power to moderate Islam to be able to stand up against this radical misinterpretation of a legitimate religion." My, isn't he special. And how, pray, wondered the interviewer, might Sen. Obama perform such a feat? "Because he is African-American. Because he's a black man, who has come from a place of oppression and repression through the years in our own country. ...everybody [in the world] still knows that issues of skin and discrimination exist, whether you're black or hispanic or asian or anything."
Anything but white.
Y'see, blacks are magic, to Sen. Kerry. They have more soul, and they share it. I guess. How else are we to understand that a man raised in Hawaii, who writes in his autobiography that he never faced racism during his long formative years, could still, somehow, partake in the oppression rampant throughout all of America, everywhere? How? Why, isn't it obvious? Silly goose! Because Negroes are magic!
Take for example Condie Rice. She's magic too! Oh, wait, I'm wrong about that. Even though in her childhood she knew children who died in racist bombings, she's not magic. Conservative Negroes are inauthentic race traitors, not magic.
An ugly fact from my childhood. I knew adults who used the term nigger-town, and nigger music. Well, it was the Sixties. They've evolved out of such speech patterns. As a teen, an adult for whom I had a great deal of respect and affection said, of Charlie Pride, a black country singer, "He's the singingest nigger ever." He meant it as a good thing. I remember being deeply shocked by the term. It seemed so vulgar, from this man I respected. But it was just the way he spoke.
My point? Words have only the power we give them. Ignorance is not the same as malice, and not all ignorance is a fault. It's not somebody else's job to worry about, or even be aware of, the things that would offend my innocent soul. We speak the way we are raised to speak, and we imitate what we're exposed to. Or we don't. I didn't. But I might have. It's only when we see that somebody else is deeply disturbed by something that we meant innocuously, that we have the obligation to change our habit. And, frankly, we don't even really have the obligation. Because we don't have to be polite. It's just, generally, a good thing. Sometimes, specifically, it's not a good thing. Which, when? Judgement.
Well, I won't go on and on. Let's just stick to the objective. Because Obama is black, he has a special ability to mollify moslems. If I said that I couldn't find any fault with such reasoning, would you think I was being sarcastic? That's deeply offensive to me, that you question my sincerity. You'd better change right now. Monster.
As for those people I knew as a kid, some of them were racists, and some weren't. But regarding Kerry, he's not racist at all. Y'see, he's saying that because Obama is black, he'd be better than a white president could be. See? Not racist at all.
J
Said Kerry in a viderview, "...he has an ability to help us bridge the divide of religious extremism -- to maybe even give power to moderate Islam to be able to stand up against this radical misinterpretation of a legitimate religion." My, isn't he special. And how, pray, wondered the interviewer, might Sen. Obama perform such a feat? "Because he is African-American. Because he's a black man, who has come from a place of oppression and repression through the years in our own country. ...everybody [in the world] still knows that issues of skin and discrimination exist, whether you're black or hispanic or asian or anything."
Anything but white.
Y'see, blacks are magic, to Sen. Kerry. They have more soul, and they share it. I guess. How else are we to understand that a man raised in Hawaii, who writes in his autobiography that he never faced racism during his long formative years, could still, somehow, partake in the oppression rampant throughout all of America, everywhere? How? Why, isn't it obvious? Silly goose! Because Negroes are magic!
Take for example Condie Rice. She's magic too! Oh, wait, I'm wrong about that. Even though in her childhood she knew children who died in racist bombings, she's not magic. Conservative Negroes are inauthentic race traitors, not magic.
An ugly fact from my childhood. I knew adults who used the term nigger-town, and nigger music. Well, it was the Sixties. They've evolved out of such speech patterns. As a teen, an adult for whom I had a great deal of respect and affection said, of Charlie Pride, a black country singer, "He's the singingest nigger ever." He meant it as a good thing. I remember being deeply shocked by the term. It seemed so vulgar, from this man I respected. But it was just the way he spoke.
My point? Words have only the power we give them. Ignorance is not the same as malice, and not all ignorance is a fault. It's not somebody else's job to worry about, or even be aware of, the things that would offend my innocent soul. We speak the way we are raised to speak, and we imitate what we're exposed to. Or we don't. I didn't. But I might have. It's only when we see that somebody else is deeply disturbed by something that we meant innocuously, that we have the obligation to change our habit. And, frankly, we don't even really have the obligation. Because we don't have to be polite. It's just, generally, a good thing. Sometimes, specifically, it's not a good thing. Which, when? Judgement.
Well, I won't go on and on. Let's just stick to the objective. Because Obama is black, he has a special ability to mollify moslems. If I said that I couldn't find any fault with such reasoning, would you think I was being sarcastic? That's deeply offensive to me, that you question my sincerity. You'd better change right now. Monster.
As for those people I knew as a kid, some of them were racists, and some weren't. But regarding Kerry, he's not racist at all. Y'see, he's saying that because Obama is black, he'd be better than a white president could be. See? Not racist at all.
J
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Throwing Grandma Under the Bus
Some pretend to suppose that only whites can be racist. Typical victimic grievance-mongering identity rhetoric. I'm sure they've bothered to cobble some sort of working definition of the term, racist. It would have to be a very specialized, very narrowly focused definition. Like something out of Bierce's Devil's Dictionary. A tautology, where the conclusion contains the premise rather than working out from it. Racism is what whites do, because all whites are racist. Something like that.
Yep, race sure is in the news a lot lately. I should have thought we were past all that. But someone keeps bringing it up. The sagacious mavens in our fairly balanced media? The poisonous bigots in the Republican Party? I just can't quite put my finger on it. Oh. Yes, now I recall. The Rev. J. Wright, of Trinity Church, Chicago. He just keeps going on and on about it. Race race race. So much racing, you'd think he'd have arrived by now. Instead, he's way back there in the Sixties. Maybe he's not talking loud enough?
I know a few black men, not many, but I don't know many of anybody. I notice the "brother" talk, but it's not my business, and anyway there's nothing wrong with being in a club. We all need our myths. Mine is the greatness of America. What I don't notice is a great deal of difference in the quality of character, in one group over another. As individuals, that is. As individuals, we're all pretty decent. As groups, we do seem to merge into our stereotypes. That's fine. Individuals aren't stereotypes, but groups are. Regression to the mean. The point? Wright, and his encouragement to racism. How outre. It would be pathetic, except it's part of a real thing. There is a lot of racism -- the sort that favors one person over another, solely because of race. Ugly. From whom does this ugliness emanate? The Rev. Wright, of course, specifically, and his vast flock, in general.
My definition of racism, you see, isn't the leftist one that college professors profess to believe. I don't hold that only the people with the power can be racist. They certainly can be racist. But I don't see the world in terms of class and other Marxist conceits. I try to see it in terms of individual conduct. Racism, to me, is "being unfair" because of some genetic or culturally neutral difference. We don't have to be overly precise. This isn't an argument. Thus, under my definition, it is clear that anyone can be a racist. Some are more powerful than others. That's too bad.
Aside from the Rev. Wright's own racist and incendiary words, let us concider the circumstantial evidence of voting trends. Specifically, consider South Carolina. Two weeks before the primary, Obama led Hillary among blacks 53% to 30%. Four days prior to the election, Obama led 59 to 25. On Election Day, he won nearly 80% of the black vote. A trend, isn't it.
What factor changed or clarified in those two weeks? Some vital policy position? Some new fact or scandal coming to light about Hillary? Obama's becoming even more eloquent and hopeful that before? Or was it race. How ever shall we decide that question? Easy. By looking at Mississippi, where Obama got 92% of the black vote. He got only 26% of the white vote. So clearly 74% of those whites are racists, right? Well, let's be fair-minded, and call it 24% -- half of the whites may very well prefer Hillary because of her vast experience, or because she's a woman, or some other highly relevant factor. Cutting that same slack for blacks, 42% of those voters would have voted purely on racial lines -- racist lines.
Is my reasoning flawed? Probably -- so many assumptions and imponderables. What isn't off is the observation that NINETY-TWO percent of blacks voted for Obama. If his opponent had been a Republican, we'd just expect it. Blacks can't think for themselves on this issue; it's group think, to be authentic. But Hillary isn't Republican. See? Get it? I don't think you do, but I can't imagine anything more to say on the matter to make it easier. I just have to repeat it. Ninety-two percent. That's an A.
On the other hand, a Gallup poll compares Hillary and Obama:
That's a measurement based on general population, not just some ethnic group. Big difference between these two, eh? Doesn't look like the general population of America has a problem with Obama, the man. We like him. I like him, generally. Maybe he's a little slick, a bit smug. But I wish I was slick and smug. I'm abrasive and insecure. What we don't like about Obama is his positions. Most of us have grown up. We don't vote because of skin color. Can you think of some group that would vote on that basis? The Hispanics? True, they favor Hillary two to one, in California, and Florida, and Texas -- in the big states. But that's only 66%. And Hispanics have all sorts of colors.
Ninety-two percent.
As for the nation as a whole, as of the Ides of March it was a dead heat between the two Dems. The RCP poll-average had it Obama, 45.8 to 45.0. No statistically meaningful difference. Likewise with McCain, who had 45.8% against both his opponents, Obama at 45.0%, and Hillary at 46.0%. Close close close, with both McCain and Hillary ganging up on Obama, as the main threat. McCain hasn't really started swinging yet. He's facing opposition from the right only, and none from the left, yet. Well, from the leftist mainstream media, of course, but that's just assumed. Their golden boy is Obama. How it must chap their inner thighs to have to report the emerging negatives about him. Well, under report them. But they have to pretend to be fair.
Problem is, these videos keep coming up. Obama's nose-diving in the polls. Better now, though, while he has time to regroup. It's the company he keeps. We do not like racists. Not at all. It's not okay to be a black racist. As long as it's safe, the lefty media ignores or actually feeds it. But this is just too savory for them to ignore.
How will it end, between Hillary and Obama? I've said that Hillary will win at a brokered convention. I only say that because the clintons play so very dirty, and pols are cowards, who care more about the comfort of the moment than about the next election cycle, where their sellout of Obama will come back to bite them. How specifically could Hillary win, behind those many closed doors? DNC rules.
The fatcats didn't like the peril that came to Jimmy Carter from that heroic insurgent Ted Kennedy in 1980, so two years later the DNC changed the rules -- delegates were no longer pledged, come what may. The current rule states that delegates "shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them."
The sentiments of those who elected them are that they want a Democrat to win. All Hillary has to do is point to the polls. See, boys? He's not as popular as he was. I can win the general election, and he can't. C'mon, fellas, you know how it is. The racist rubes that we all hate would never vote for a colored, and y'all know what Ah'm talkin' 'bout. And, uh, frankly, boys, doesn't it seem like Obama is just a lot blacker than we thought he was?
You think it can't happen? It will happen. It may not work.
As I say, Obama is the wrong black man. He sold his grandmother down the river yesterday. Did you hear that? His racist grandmother? For shame. While he defends this indefensible racist. For shame.
J
Yep, race sure is in the news a lot lately. I should have thought we were past all that. But someone keeps bringing it up. The sagacious mavens in our fairly balanced media? The poisonous bigots in the Republican Party? I just can't quite put my finger on it. Oh. Yes, now I recall. The Rev. J. Wright, of Trinity Church, Chicago. He just keeps going on and on about it. Race race race. So much racing, you'd think he'd have arrived by now. Instead, he's way back there in the Sixties. Maybe he's not talking loud enough?
I know a few black men, not many, but I don't know many of anybody. I notice the "brother" talk, but it's not my business, and anyway there's nothing wrong with being in a club. We all need our myths. Mine is the greatness of America. What I don't notice is a great deal of difference in the quality of character, in one group over another. As individuals, that is. As individuals, we're all pretty decent. As groups, we do seem to merge into our stereotypes. That's fine. Individuals aren't stereotypes, but groups are. Regression to the mean. The point? Wright, and his encouragement to racism. How outre. It would be pathetic, except it's part of a real thing. There is a lot of racism -- the sort that favors one person over another, solely because of race. Ugly. From whom does this ugliness emanate? The Rev. Wright, of course, specifically, and his vast flock, in general.
My definition of racism, you see, isn't the leftist one that college professors profess to believe. I don't hold that only the people with the power can be racist. They certainly can be racist. But I don't see the world in terms of class and other Marxist conceits. I try to see it in terms of individual conduct. Racism, to me, is "being unfair" because of some genetic or culturally neutral difference. We don't have to be overly precise. This isn't an argument. Thus, under my definition, it is clear that anyone can be a racist. Some are more powerful than others. That's too bad.
Aside from the Rev. Wright's own racist and incendiary words, let us concider the circumstantial evidence of voting trends. Specifically, consider South Carolina. Two weeks before the primary, Obama led Hillary among blacks 53% to 30%. Four days prior to the election, Obama led 59 to 25. On Election Day, he won nearly 80% of the black vote. A trend, isn't it.
What factor changed or clarified in those two weeks? Some vital policy position? Some new fact or scandal coming to light about Hillary? Obama's becoming even more eloquent and hopeful that before? Or was it race. How ever shall we decide that question? Easy. By looking at Mississippi, where Obama got 92% of the black vote. He got only 26% of the white vote. So clearly 74% of those whites are racists, right? Well, let's be fair-minded, and call it 24% -- half of the whites may very well prefer Hillary because of her vast experience, or because she's a woman, or some other highly relevant factor. Cutting that same slack for blacks, 42% of those voters would have voted purely on racial lines -- racist lines.
Is my reasoning flawed? Probably -- so many assumptions and imponderables. What isn't off is the observation that NINETY-TWO percent of blacks voted for Obama. If his opponent had been a Republican, we'd just expect it. Blacks can't think for themselves on this issue; it's group think, to be authentic. But Hillary isn't Republican. See? Get it? I don't think you do, but I can't imagine anything more to say on the matter to make it easier. I just have to repeat it. Ninety-two percent. That's an A.
On the other hand, a Gallup poll compares Hillary and Obama:
That's a measurement based on general population, not just some ethnic group. Big difference between these two, eh? Doesn't look like the general population of America has a problem with Obama, the man. We like him. I like him, generally. Maybe he's a little slick, a bit smug. But I wish I was slick and smug. I'm abrasive and insecure. What we don't like about Obama is his positions. Most of us have grown up. We don't vote because of skin color. Can you think of some group that would vote on that basis? The Hispanics? True, they favor Hillary two to one, in California, and Florida, and Texas -- in the big states. But that's only 66%. And Hispanics have all sorts of colors.
Ninety-two percent.
As for the nation as a whole, as of the Ides of March it was a dead heat between the two Dems. The RCP poll-average had it Obama, 45.8 to 45.0. No statistically meaningful difference. Likewise with McCain, who had 45.8% against both his opponents, Obama at 45.0%, and Hillary at 46.0%. Close close close, with both McCain and Hillary ganging up on Obama, as the main threat. McCain hasn't really started swinging yet. He's facing opposition from the right only, and none from the left, yet. Well, from the leftist mainstream media, of course, but that's just assumed. Their golden boy is Obama. How it must chap their inner thighs to have to report the emerging negatives about him. Well, under report them. But they have to pretend to be fair.
Problem is, these videos keep coming up. Obama's nose-diving in the polls. Better now, though, while he has time to regroup. It's the company he keeps. We do not like racists. Not at all. It's not okay to be a black racist. As long as it's safe, the lefty media ignores or actually feeds it. But this is just too savory for them to ignore.
How will it end, between Hillary and Obama? I've said that Hillary will win at a brokered convention. I only say that because the clintons play so very dirty, and pols are cowards, who care more about the comfort of the moment than about the next election cycle, where their sellout of Obama will come back to bite them. How specifically could Hillary win, behind those many closed doors? DNC rules.
The fatcats didn't like the peril that came to Jimmy Carter from that heroic insurgent Ted Kennedy in 1980, so two years later the DNC changed the rules -- delegates were no longer pledged, come what may. The current rule states that delegates "shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them."
The sentiments of those who elected them are that they want a Democrat to win. All Hillary has to do is point to the polls. See, boys? He's not as popular as he was. I can win the general election, and he can't. C'mon, fellas, you know how it is. The racist rubes that we all hate would never vote for a colored, and y'all know what Ah'm talkin' 'bout. And, uh, frankly, boys, doesn't it seem like Obama is just a lot blacker than we thought he was?
You think it can't happen? It will happen. It may not work.
As I say, Obama is the wrong black man. He sold his grandmother down the river yesterday. Did you hear that? His racist grandmother? For shame. While he defends this indefensible racist. For shame.
J
Monday, March 17, 2008
Blessings and Cursings
I don't really know that many songs. I was, so the story goes, a child performer. Mid-Sixties. Folk songs. But I haven't stayed current. Same old songs for the past forty-plus years. I'm not apologizing. Back when I listened to music, it was Classical, exclusively. Those tunes don't even have names -- just labels. So be it. Some songs, though, have seeped even through my muffled perceptions. And so I return once more to God Bless America. Mark Stein addresses the topic of Rev. Wright and his cursing from the pulpit. "God damn America." Tee hee.
Stein reminds us of the history of that song, the blessing song. I won't rehash it. But let's look at the song again. I kid you not, the words bring tears to my eyes.
God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America,
My home sweet home.
Did you notice? "Stand beside her" -- be loyal, she's not as strong as she looks. "Guide her" -- be committed, she needs wisdom. "My home" -- because all history is past, and tomorrow is not promised, but we do, anyone who reads these words, have a home, and it's a pretty good one, and we should be thankful for it. Good lord. What manner of man would blaspheme that prayer?
Yes. Didn't you know? It's a prayer. It's a short song, but there is a little more to it. Goes like this:
While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.
Written in 1938, you see, when that little Nazi thing was brewing. Not relevant to our modern era. There are no more Nazis. Just white racists and sexists and other identity criminals. But I digress. We are not perfectly free. But we are free. Our land is not entirely unblemished, but it is fair. The Reverend Wright took these manifest facts and made them a cheap ploy. It is not just a beautiful prayer, but a solemn one. He has polluted it.
Why would he do such a thing? He is a racist, is my theory. Maybe I'm wrong. But I think I'm right. Is it important that he's a racist? Well, it's not a good thing to be. And people in positions of influence, especially spiritual influence, should be extra careful, for they will surely be judged by a more stringent standard. The good apostle Paul tells us so. Wright must, must know it. And there's that little thing about there being in Christ no slave nor free, no male nor female, no countryman or barbarian -- no black nor white. I paraphrase. Does Wright not understand this most primal of Christian teachings?
No, it's not really, truly important. Neither is the fact that he is the much vaunted mentor of Sen. Obama. Obama is allowed to have fools for friends. He's allowed to be foolish himself, in some ways. We make our decisions using whatever criteria we will, and live with the consequences.
I take no pleasure in the distress of other -- not of other basically good people. Some people need to be tortured to death, forever. But hardly anyone. What is refreshing, though, is to see the hounds turn on their master. Every Republican gets close close close scrutiny, and is held accountable by the MSM for things outside his portfolio. The perfection police have now settled their slimy and belated malice upon Obama. The radiance fades. He's down five points in his favorability, and up six points in his unfavorability ratings. Fickle populi. But it's what happens when the secret places are opened up.
Obama's mistake was supposing he was what he seemed to be. He forgot, if I may be cheap, that he's half black and half white. Like all of us. We have our dark side. I know, I'm obvious. But if he uses himself as a living symbol of unity, he'd better understand just what exactly it is that needs to be unified. Not the races. There's only one. What needs to be unified is the disconnect in how human nature is projected. Not simple. Complex. None of us are good. Most of us just obey laws, and maybe try to act, act in a civil manner.
Most edifying is the admission of imperfections and the striving to overcome their influence. I know of only one perfect man. Obama was presented as a sort of messiah, and is enjoying a minor crucifixion now, not for his excellence but his human frailty. He was careless in the friends, mentors, he kept, and ineffective in explaining his loyalty and attraction to such teachings. Ah well. You're the same, and so am I. It's just that we must surely know this about ourselves, and be frank about it.
There's entirely too much damning. Let's not damn America, or any race, or people with whom we have mere disagreements. Let's be kind in our own lives, and not suppose that bureaucrats could possibly do a better job of it than we could. That would be a change. That would be real hope. We make our own blessings.
J
Stein reminds us of the history of that song, the blessing song. I won't rehash it. But let's look at the song again. I kid you not, the words bring tears to my eyes.
God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America,
My home sweet home.
Did you notice? "Stand beside her" -- be loyal, she's not as strong as she looks. "Guide her" -- be committed, she needs wisdom. "My home" -- because all history is past, and tomorrow is not promised, but we do, anyone who reads these words, have a home, and it's a pretty good one, and we should be thankful for it. Good lord. What manner of man would blaspheme that prayer?
Yes. Didn't you know? It's a prayer. It's a short song, but there is a little more to it. Goes like this:
While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.
Written in 1938, you see, when that little Nazi thing was brewing. Not relevant to our modern era. There are no more Nazis. Just white racists and sexists and other identity criminals. But I digress. We are not perfectly free. But we are free. Our land is not entirely unblemished, but it is fair. The Reverend Wright took these manifest facts and made them a cheap ploy. It is not just a beautiful prayer, but a solemn one. He has polluted it.
Why would he do such a thing? He is a racist, is my theory. Maybe I'm wrong. But I think I'm right. Is it important that he's a racist? Well, it's not a good thing to be. And people in positions of influence, especially spiritual influence, should be extra careful, for they will surely be judged by a more stringent standard. The good apostle Paul tells us so. Wright must, must know it. And there's that little thing about there being in Christ no slave nor free, no male nor female, no countryman or barbarian -- no black nor white. I paraphrase. Does Wright not understand this most primal of Christian teachings?
No, it's not really, truly important. Neither is the fact that he is the much vaunted mentor of Sen. Obama. Obama is allowed to have fools for friends. He's allowed to be foolish himself, in some ways. We make our decisions using whatever criteria we will, and live with the consequences.
I take no pleasure in the distress of other -- not of other basically good people. Some people need to be tortured to death, forever. But hardly anyone. What is refreshing, though, is to see the hounds turn on their master. Every Republican gets close close close scrutiny, and is held accountable by the MSM for things outside his portfolio. The perfection police have now settled their slimy and belated malice upon Obama. The radiance fades. He's down five points in his favorability, and up six points in his unfavorability ratings. Fickle populi. But it's what happens when the secret places are opened up.
Obama's mistake was supposing he was what he seemed to be. He forgot, if I may be cheap, that he's half black and half white. Like all of us. We have our dark side. I know, I'm obvious. But if he uses himself as a living symbol of unity, he'd better understand just what exactly it is that needs to be unified. Not the races. There's only one. What needs to be unified is the disconnect in how human nature is projected. Not simple. Complex. None of us are good. Most of us just obey laws, and maybe try to act, act in a civil manner.
Most edifying is the admission of imperfections and the striving to overcome their influence. I know of only one perfect man. Obama was presented as a sort of messiah, and is enjoying a minor crucifixion now, not for his excellence but his human frailty. He was careless in the friends, mentors, he kept, and ineffective in explaining his loyalty and attraction to such teachings. Ah well. You're the same, and so am I. It's just that we must surely know this about ourselves, and be frank about it.
There's entirely too much damning. Let's not damn America, or any race, or people with whom we have mere disagreements. Let's be kind in our own lives, and not suppose that bureaucrats could possibly do a better job of it than we could. That would be a change. That would be real hope. We make our own blessings.
J
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Of Course
My computer crashed. I lost everything. I'm given a nice clean tabletop that asks me if I'd like a tour. No, fuck you very much, I'd like my information back.
Yes, I have backed it up. I did it a few months ago, or a couple of years, or something, and I'm sure I can find it somewhere, eventually. But I'll be busy for a while. I'm going out right now to procure some Ecstasy, and then I'm having gay sex with teenage boys.
I've lost everything before. This is nothing. In about six week I'll have an emotion about it. In the meantime I expect to be inexplicably sullen, with unexpected bursts of irrationality.
J
Yes, I have backed it up. I did it a few months ago, or a couple of years, or something, and I'm sure I can find it somewhere, eventually. But I'll be busy for a while. I'm going out right now to procure some Ecstasy, and then I'm having gay sex with teenage boys.
I've lost everything before. This is nothing. In about six week I'll have an emotion about it. In the meantime I expect to be inexplicably sullen, with unexpected bursts of irrationality.
J
Brain Living
David Mamet is a great playwright. Sere and vulgar and elegant and eloquent. You must read his piece on why he is no longer, in his words, a "brain dead liberal" -- which piece he has entitled, "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'".
It's such a pleasure to see it. He wondered, "how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama."
It's like redemption, the way the light finally shines through.
He arrived at his new insight by actually thinking about politics, "which is to say, about the polemic between persons of two opposing views." Get it? It's profoundly unsafe to assume that you're right. The other guy may be an idiot. He may be an obvious idiot. That's not uncommon. But he's not an idiot because he disagrees with you. He's an idiot because he does not consider an issue on its merits. Theory matters more than reality. That's idiotic. We don't of course have to be in a state of perpetual instability. We do need to formulate our principles rationally, and return to them upon occasion to compare them with the broader base of knowledge that our continuing experience will have brought to us.
"I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism."
Human nature? "The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.
"Rather brilliant. ..."
He observes that Americans live every day "under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances -- that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired -- in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it."
Of course, you and I have understood all this for all of our adult lifetimes. Having a realistic understanding of how the world works is a good rule-of-thumb definition of being an adult. There is no shame, though, in blooming late. We celebrate wisdom where ever we find it. My religion understands this most deeply. We have a father who waits for us to tire of pig-living. By this example, it is so very easy to welcome those who have gone astray but have returned, like little children, to a love of meaningful justice, albeit with a hard-won and necessary apprehension of our human frailty.
It's not the most beautiful thing to say, but how very lovely, to say, once more or for the first time, Welcome home, friend.
J
It's such a pleasure to see it. He wondered, "how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama."
It's like redemption, the way the light finally shines through.
He arrived at his new insight by actually thinking about politics, "which is to say, about the polemic between persons of two opposing views." Get it? It's profoundly unsafe to assume that you're right. The other guy may be an idiot. He may be an obvious idiot. That's not uncommon. But he's not an idiot because he disagrees with you. He's an idiot because he does not consider an issue on its merits. Theory matters more than reality. That's idiotic. We don't of course have to be in a state of perpetual instability. We do need to formulate our principles rationally, and return to them upon occasion to compare them with the broader base of knowledge that our continuing experience will have brought to us.
"I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism."
Human nature? "The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.
"Rather brilliant. ..."
He observes that Americans live every day "under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances -- that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired -- in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it."
Of course, you and I have understood all this for all of our adult lifetimes. Having a realistic understanding of how the world works is a good rule-of-thumb definition of being an adult. There is no shame, though, in blooming late. We celebrate wisdom where ever we find it. My religion understands this most deeply. We have a father who waits for us to tire of pig-living. By this example, it is so very easy to welcome those who have gone astray but have returned, like little children, to a love of meaningful justice, albeit with a hard-won and necessary apprehension of our human frailty.
It's not the most beautiful thing to say, but how very lovely, to say, once more or for the first time, Welcome home, friend.
J
Friday, March 14, 2008
Video
What did I tell you? Somehow, from somewhere, these videos are coming out. Such a mystery. You know, about Obama. His pastor, that is. In whose congregation Obama has sat for 18 years, listening in rapt attention. Devotion, even. Obama consulted with Wright about whether he should run for Senate. And for the presidency. Wright officiated at Obama's wedding. Wright baptized Obama's children. This is a man who is important to Obama.
I heard a talk tonight about how some black families don't quite celebrate the Fourth of July. Independence Day. They're not wrong. Nobody has to observe my holidays. I don't. I just acknowledge that they're important. Ceremony is important. I should think the idea of independence is important to black families. The Fourth just isn't the day that it came to them. Emancipation Day. I don't even remember what day that is. I'm not unamerican for that ignorance, any more than a black man is unamerican for remembering slavery. It should be remembered. Inscribed in one's heart. Not with bitterness, if one is strong enough. With firm resolve, never again to allow such a thing to happen, to one's own family, kindred, race, or countrymen -- never to any human, insofar as it's in our power. To love freedom, and hate its absence, and stand up that it may spread, and remember the injustice of its theft -- this is what America is.
So that Obama does not, if it's true, celebrate the Fourth of July -- this is his right. I don't even know if that's just a rumor or not. Don't care. Likewise with the Rev. Wright. He does not have to follow the particulars of my expectations. Just the law, and the common code of civilized human conduct. So that he should hold America close to the stink of its former injustices? This is fitting. To speak from the pulpit, reminding his congregants of past and current wrongs -- this is the very function of a prophet. But to say "God damn America"?
A childish riff, it was, on the song, God Bless America. The sort of thing an adolescent might think is clever. Certainly nothing that a mature or thoughtful or honorable man would proclaim from the pulpit. Why? Because it is a curse, upon America, and America should not be cursed. It should be blessed. If Wright had said, 'God damns America', it would merely be a debatable proposition. Because of its iniquity, America is damned, forsaken, by God. Could be. That's not what Wright said. He said "God damn America". It comes from his heart, just as the words of the song come from the heart. It is a wish. To say otherwise is to play with words, and it would be disingenuous. Let's not do that.
How is this important? Because Obama sits in that sanctuary, being edified by those words. He claims he was not in attendance for that particular sermon. Perhaps his schedule bears him out, or perhaps it's just a political lie. I don't really care. I strongly expect that the Rev. Wright has said many such things, in Obama's presence. Things that, no matter how truly felt, are easily used, as this "God damn America" is used. Things that give deep offense to those sensitive to such issues. And I am utterly certain, although I could be wrong, that Obama has never, in word or in deed, through letter or email, ever corrected, upbraided or distanced himself from such statements, prior to their coming to light in this current political season.
Further, I fully expect video of Sen. Obama, sitting or standing, smiling and clapping, at the words of the Reverend. If such video exists, showing Obama present at a time when the preacher is making any of his racist or provocative statements, things will get very, very interesting.
There's a segment of the population that will never have a problem with damning America. Most of the Left. The Right would never vote for Obama, any more than they'd vote for any leftist. As for the center, well, Obama's claim to be a uniter will be shattered. He really should lose the nomination. How could he claim to be a patriot, as the term is generally understood? How could he stand up to foreign criticism, defend America, if he failed to defend it in his own church? Will he rebuke enemies if he will not correct friends? Would he stand by silently or with approval while somebody God damned his own wife?
You see the dilemma. And if he does lose the nomination, imagine the rage from blacks, and the youth, and the far left. We don't want to win because of cynicism. It should be on rational issues. No. None of this is a good thing.
Wright is an oaf. A demagogue. Not stupid, just coming out of an undisciplined style of thought and speech. We temper our words. We don't get people all riled up, all whooped up. We should strive to inspire to noble actions, not to low emotions. I suppose the stereotypical black and Southern swaying and handwaving church experience has its place. It's not my way, but that's fine. I went to a pentecostal church once, and was absolutely appalled. But they can do what they want. When all the hollering is done, though, and it comes time to preaching the words of the Bible, there should be more than verses about faith and judgments against enemies. I'm sure Wright understands that simple truth. He does not seem to understand about tempering his words.
Obama is the wrong black man to run for president. He is a magnificent speaker. It's just that he's an inexperienced lefty. If he loses, it will create great bitterness. If he wins, it will create even more. His leftist policies will be devastating to America and the world, and who will be blamed for that? A black president. Then we'll get all kinds of emotional excuses, and claims that he was undermined, sabotaged, that the Establishment -- the White Establishment, mind you -- wanted him to fail, planned it. He never had a chance. Etc.
It's a disaster. Hope? Of course there's hope. We just have to find it. I don't mean the verbal hope of campaign banners. Real hope. Based on something substantial. Let's look for it. I'll let you know if I find it. You do the same. Deal?
J
I heard a talk tonight about how some black families don't quite celebrate the Fourth of July. Independence Day. They're not wrong. Nobody has to observe my holidays. I don't. I just acknowledge that they're important. Ceremony is important. I should think the idea of independence is important to black families. The Fourth just isn't the day that it came to them. Emancipation Day. I don't even remember what day that is. I'm not unamerican for that ignorance, any more than a black man is unamerican for remembering slavery. It should be remembered. Inscribed in one's heart. Not with bitterness, if one is strong enough. With firm resolve, never again to allow such a thing to happen, to one's own family, kindred, race, or countrymen -- never to any human, insofar as it's in our power. To love freedom, and hate its absence, and stand up that it may spread, and remember the injustice of its theft -- this is what America is.
So that Obama does not, if it's true, celebrate the Fourth of July -- this is his right. I don't even know if that's just a rumor or not. Don't care. Likewise with the Rev. Wright. He does not have to follow the particulars of my expectations. Just the law, and the common code of civilized human conduct. So that he should hold America close to the stink of its former injustices? This is fitting. To speak from the pulpit, reminding his congregants of past and current wrongs -- this is the very function of a prophet. But to say "God damn America"?
A childish riff, it was, on the song, God Bless America. The sort of thing an adolescent might think is clever. Certainly nothing that a mature or thoughtful or honorable man would proclaim from the pulpit. Why? Because it is a curse, upon America, and America should not be cursed. It should be blessed. If Wright had said, 'God damns America', it would merely be a debatable proposition. Because of its iniquity, America is damned, forsaken, by God. Could be. That's not what Wright said. He said "God damn America". It comes from his heart, just as the words of the song come from the heart. It is a wish. To say otherwise is to play with words, and it would be disingenuous. Let's not do that.
How is this important? Because Obama sits in that sanctuary, being edified by those words. He claims he was not in attendance for that particular sermon. Perhaps his schedule bears him out, or perhaps it's just a political lie. I don't really care. I strongly expect that the Rev. Wright has said many such things, in Obama's presence. Things that, no matter how truly felt, are easily used, as this "God damn America" is used. Things that give deep offense to those sensitive to such issues. And I am utterly certain, although I could be wrong, that Obama has never, in word or in deed, through letter or email, ever corrected, upbraided or distanced himself from such statements, prior to their coming to light in this current political season.
Further, I fully expect video of Sen. Obama, sitting or standing, smiling and clapping, at the words of the Reverend. If such video exists, showing Obama present at a time when the preacher is making any of his racist or provocative statements, things will get very, very interesting.
There's a segment of the population that will never have a problem with damning America. Most of the Left. The Right would never vote for Obama, any more than they'd vote for any leftist. As for the center, well, Obama's claim to be a uniter will be shattered. He really should lose the nomination. How could he claim to be a patriot, as the term is generally understood? How could he stand up to foreign criticism, defend America, if he failed to defend it in his own church? Will he rebuke enemies if he will not correct friends? Would he stand by silently or with approval while somebody God damned his own wife?
You see the dilemma. And if he does lose the nomination, imagine the rage from blacks, and the youth, and the far left. We don't want to win because of cynicism. It should be on rational issues. No. None of this is a good thing.
Wright is an oaf. A demagogue. Not stupid, just coming out of an undisciplined style of thought and speech. We temper our words. We don't get people all riled up, all whooped up. We should strive to inspire to noble actions, not to low emotions. I suppose the stereotypical black and Southern swaying and handwaving church experience has its place. It's not my way, but that's fine. I went to a pentecostal church once, and was absolutely appalled. But they can do what they want. When all the hollering is done, though, and it comes time to preaching the words of the Bible, there should be more than verses about faith and judgments against enemies. I'm sure Wright understands that simple truth. He does not seem to understand about tempering his words.
Obama is the wrong black man to run for president. He is a magnificent speaker. It's just that he's an inexperienced lefty. If he loses, it will create great bitterness. If he wins, it will create even more. His leftist policies will be devastating to America and the world, and who will be blamed for that? A black president. Then we'll get all kinds of emotional excuses, and claims that he was undermined, sabotaged, that the Establishment -- the White Establishment, mind you -- wanted him to fail, planned it. He never had a chance. Etc.
It's a disaster. Hope? Of course there's hope. We just have to find it. I don't mean the verbal hope of campaign banners. Real hope. Based on something substantial. Let's look for it. I'll let you know if I find it. You do the same. Deal?
J
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Latest
I feel a little guilty about that last post. What I said about Spitzer's wife. It was ingracious. She's not old. I do that once in a very great while -- say something unfair because there's a joke in it. No harm meant.
Same with Geraldine Ferraro. She said something about Obama, and had to resign from Hillary's finance committee. “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Is she right? Irrelevant. She can be wrong. Point is, she had a sincere and actually harmless opinion, and expressed it.
Have you noticed how many people have to resign because they've said something, expressed some mere opinion, mind you, that certain others claim to have found "offensive"? Samantha Power, a former Obama campaign adviser, resigned from Obama's staff after calling Hillary a "monster" -- off the record. It's the word police, the Opinion Stasi. We're not allowed to have disapproved-of opinions. Ms. Ferraro, and Ms. Power, and so many lefties, are hoisted on their own peecee petards. (A petard is a bomb, which hoists via an explosion.)
This is why fairness and a certain expansiveness of spirit is required. We all make mistakes. Sometimes our mistakes aren't even actually mistakes. They're just opinions. Someone has to resign for it? Pathetic.
Spitzer had to resign because he broke laws. You may think prostitution should be legal. But it's not, and he wasn't engaging in civil disobedience, heroically laying his life on the line that others may have a fuller expression of their civil rights. He just wanted some number of orgasms, with a strange woman. I saw her picture by the way. She looks like a female George Hamilton. I've never considered going to a prostitute. But I know I wouldn't pay 5000 dollars to be with one, let alone this weasel.
Speaking of weasels, Obama's preacher is in the news. Wright. He was going on in some speech -- it couldn't have been a sermon, what with all its politics and campaign rhetoric (there are tax laws after all, and I'm just so very sure that Rev. Wright would never dream of breaking the law) -- about how Hillary hadn't ever been called a nigger -- "nigger". Oh, and by the way, he says, from the pulpit, in his ecclesiastical vestments, "God damn America." And so on. Yes, there is a historic and on-going opprobrium attached to blacks. History is what it is. We'll have to have God explain to us why it is this way. I can only make guesses. And there seems to be no word that cuts as deeply as that one. Perhaps that's why we hear it so often on the basketball court and from the pulpit. A way of desensitizing, disempowering the word. A tactic that could backfire, since if it's okay for one group, what consistent argument can forbid it from another? Only courtesy. But as I say, I don't really get it. I heard a black man on the radio say that when it comes time to get really insulting, there that word is, and "it cuts to the bone." I can't argue with it.
But don't tell me I don't understand. I don't understand that specific. Do you imagine there aren't things in my own past that don't lacerate me? Is it the same? No, it's different. But what monster of egotism would say that the pain of one group is unapproachably different than that of some other, or of some individual? I have pain that might cause me to commit murder, on sight. Sometimes I cannot breathe, for rage. It's not about a word, with me. But of course it's never about a word.
We want respect. We want to be taken on our own merit, rather than stereotyped because of some appearance or assumed characteristic. You see my point. Ferraro has a right to her opinion. She thinks Obama would not even be a contender, were it not for the fact that he is black. I sincerely disagree with her. I think Obama is exceptional. He is an amazing speaker, at his best, and his charisma is palpable. Nothing to do with black. Anyone with his talent would be where he is, regardless of gender or race. How could Ferraro miss that? For whatever reason she has. So what.
I would love for one of these mannequins to stand up and defend their fallen friends. Hillary should have said, 'I disagree with the opinion of my good friend, Geraldine. She has offered me her resignation from my campaign. But I will not be accepting her resignation. She is valuable to me, as a person and as an adviser. In my campaign, as in my administration, honorable service will be met with loyalty.
'My staff is allowed to be human, which means they will make mistakes. I, as president, will make mistakes. Every executive, even the most successful, makes mistakes. Anyone who doesn't understand this has never been a leader. Far more horrible than some human failing, is to demand perfection. The most we can strive for is excellence. This is my goal, and one of the signposts along that path is recognizing mistakes. When we find such error, we do not knock down the signpost -- we correct our course. How will we arrive where we want to go, if we cannot turn back once in a while from false paths?
'The world, like history, is what it is. We must be strong, and gentle. For these reasons, I for one forgive my dear friend for any mistake she has made in this. I would pray that anyone who has been offended by her opinion will open their hearts to a similar forgiveness. When we yearn for a great and good America, this must be what we mean. A land filled with people whose demand for upright character starts with themselves, and whose souls are strong enough to bear the weight of offense, and with forgiveness make that burden insubstantial.'
I like writing fantasy speeches. Might we expect such a thing from Ms. Clinton? Or from Mr. Obama, for his friend and mentor the Reverend Wright? Or from Sen. McCain, who apologized for a man who dared utter Obama's middle H-name? Time will tell. Let's not be cynical.
As for Geraldine, man, that bitch is old.
J
Same with Geraldine Ferraro. She said something about Obama, and had to resign from Hillary's finance committee. “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Is she right? Irrelevant. She can be wrong. Point is, she had a sincere and actually harmless opinion, and expressed it.
Have you noticed how many people have to resign because they've said something, expressed some mere opinion, mind you, that certain others claim to have found "offensive"? Samantha Power, a former Obama campaign adviser, resigned from Obama's staff after calling Hillary a "monster" -- off the record. It's the word police, the Opinion Stasi. We're not allowed to have disapproved-of opinions. Ms. Ferraro, and Ms. Power, and so many lefties, are hoisted on their own peecee petards. (A petard is a bomb, which hoists via an explosion.)
This is why fairness and a certain expansiveness of spirit is required. We all make mistakes. Sometimes our mistakes aren't even actually mistakes. They're just opinions. Someone has to resign for it? Pathetic.
Spitzer had to resign because he broke laws. You may think prostitution should be legal. But it's not, and he wasn't engaging in civil disobedience, heroically laying his life on the line that others may have a fuller expression of their civil rights. He just wanted some number of orgasms, with a strange woman. I saw her picture by the way. She looks like a female George Hamilton. I've never considered going to a prostitute. But I know I wouldn't pay 5000 dollars to be with one, let alone this weasel.
Speaking of weasels, Obama's preacher is in the news. Wright. He was going on in some speech -- it couldn't have been a sermon, what with all its politics and campaign rhetoric (there are tax laws after all, and I'm just so very sure that Rev. Wright would never dream of breaking the law) -- about how Hillary hadn't ever been called a nigger -- "nigger". Oh, and by the way, he says, from the pulpit, in his ecclesiastical vestments, "God damn America." And so on. Yes, there is a historic and on-going opprobrium attached to blacks. History is what it is. We'll have to have God explain to us why it is this way. I can only make guesses. And there seems to be no word that cuts as deeply as that one. Perhaps that's why we hear it so often on the basketball court and from the pulpit. A way of desensitizing, disempowering the word. A tactic that could backfire, since if it's okay for one group, what consistent argument can forbid it from another? Only courtesy. But as I say, I don't really get it. I heard a black man on the radio say that when it comes time to get really insulting, there that word is, and "it cuts to the bone." I can't argue with it.
But don't tell me I don't understand. I don't understand that specific. Do you imagine there aren't things in my own past that don't lacerate me? Is it the same? No, it's different. But what monster of egotism would say that the pain of one group is unapproachably different than that of some other, or of some individual? I have pain that might cause me to commit murder, on sight. Sometimes I cannot breathe, for rage. It's not about a word, with me. But of course it's never about a word.
We want respect. We want to be taken on our own merit, rather than stereotyped because of some appearance or assumed characteristic. You see my point. Ferraro has a right to her opinion. She thinks Obama would not even be a contender, were it not for the fact that he is black. I sincerely disagree with her. I think Obama is exceptional. He is an amazing speaker, at his best, and his charisma is palpable. Nothing to do with black. Anyone with his talent would be where he is, regardless of gender or race. How could Ferraro miss that? For whatever reason she has. So what.
I would love for one of these mannequins to stand up and defend their fallen friends. Hillary should have said, 'I disagree with the opinion of my good friend, Geraldine. She has offered me her resignation from my campaign. But I will not be accepting her resignation. She is valuable to me, as a person and as an adviser. In my campaign, as in my administration, honorable service will be met with loyalty.
'My staff is allowed to be human, which means they will make mistakes. I, as president, will make mistakes. Every executive, even the most successful, makes mistakes. Anyone who doesn't understand this has never been a leader. Far more horrible than some human failing, is to demand perfection. The most we can strive for is excellence. This is my goal, and one of the signposts along that path is recognizing mistakes. When we find such error, we do not knock down the signpost -- we correct our course. How will we arrive where we want to go, if we cannot turn back once in a while from false paths?
'The world, like history, is what it is. We must be strong, and gentle. For these reasons, I for one forgive my dear friend for any mistake she has made in this. I would pray that anyone who has been offended by her opinion will open their hearts to a similar forgiveness. When we yearn for a great and good America, this must be what we mean. A land filled with people whose demand for upright character starts with themselves, and whose souls are strong enough to bear the weight of offense, and with forgiveness make that burden insubstantial.'
I like writing fantasy speeches. Might we expect such a thing from Ms. Clinton? Or from Mr. Obama, for his friend and mentor the Reverend Wright? Or from Sen. McCain, who apologized for a man who dared utter Obama's middle H-name? Time will tell. Let's not be cynical.
As for Geraldine, man, that bitch is old.
J
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