Mack Hall
Send out the clowns. No, this is not a piece about the candidates for the presidency.
Imagine, if you will, a film in black-and-white from the 1940s or 1950s. A man (perhaps his name is Bill, or maybe Augie) smokes a cigarette pensively while leaning against a light pole on a street corner at night. He flicks the cigarette butt away and walks across to a church. He removes his hat (this concept also may need explaining to anyone under forty) as he enters, walks down an aisle, and kneels before a side altar.
Bill (or Augie) may or may not be a Catholic, but that’s not important: as Father O’Malley (it’s always Father O’Malley, or Father O’Flaherty, or Father O’Something) gives his Irish-brogue-y homily during evening Mass, something in his words brings Bill (or Augie) to a moral decision on which the plot of the movie hinges.
The next scene shows us Bill (or Augie) leaving the church, fitting his fedora firmly to his head, and striding purposefully off to propose marriage to his girl or face the villains or stand up to the corrupt mayor.
But then imagine, if you will, Bill (or Augie) entering the church to find a clown Mass in progress, with Father O’Trendy dressed as a cartoon pirate and pushing Kool-Aid and Ritz Crackers as The Lord’s Supper.
No, this is not a piece about the cardinal-archbishop of Los Angeles. We’re talking about a priest or minister dressed as a clown. Paint. Makeup. Big funny shoes. Multi-colored costume. The kind of goof who mouths such decades-old drivel as “we need to reach the people where they are,” and “the spirit of Vatican II.”
Bill (or Augie) turns and leaves, and lights another cigarette in confusion on the street corner. A clown Mass has not inspired him to propose marriage, face the villains, stand up to the corrupt mayor, or forswear smoking.
The sad reality is the non-fictional part – there actually are priests and ministers who feel called by some spirit, possibly not a very nice spirit, to, as Chaucer said, “make monkeys of the…congregation.” Like bongos and guitars in the 1960s, clown liturgies are an embarrassing fashion perpetrated by ill-advised men with a desperate need to call attention to themselves.
Well, hey, who doesn’t want a clown spraying seltzer water during a loved one’s funeral, eh?
After all, if the pastor is going to do a clown act during Sunday services, why not at funerals? Imagine a bunch of clowns hopping out of a tiny hearse and repeatedly dropping Grandpa’s coffin for laughs.
Clown Last Supper: Jesus reclines on a whoopee cushion and the Apostles laugh hysterically and high-five each other.
Or maybe clown Stations of the Cross: Simon of Cyrene honks a rubber-bulb car horn and dances away.
On Easter morning the women approach the Tomb and are greeted by the Marx Brothers who chase them off while making suggestive remarks.
Think of martyrs for the faith in our time, with a firing squad dressed as clowns and the officer in charge waving a carrot instead of a sword.
Clowns in church? No, it won’t do. No quantity of quoting isolated snippets from St. Paul can excuse desecration; that only makes it worse.
There are times and places for playing the fool – presidential candidates campaigning in Iowa come to mind – because life should be fun. But to turn a religious service into the crudest sort of entertainment is to laugh at, not with, the people the pastor is presumably commissioned to teach and serve and love.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
It's Not Over Until January 6th
Mack Hall
Every year some folks take up their crayons and write querulously to the newspapers to demand that Christ be returned to Christmas, as if the newspapers are somehow at fault because Christmas is not what the writers of letters to the editor think it ought to be.
The real irony is that for much of Christian history Christ was not in Christmas because there was no Christmas at all.
Christmas as a Feast of the Church was formally established by Pope Julius I in 350. Even then our poor, ignorant, superstitious ancestors only went to church on Christmas to worship God, and failed to buy masses of made-in-China stuff.
Over time, European nations slowly developed the concept of the twelve days, keeping Christmas from the 25th of December until the Feast of the Epiphany, or Three Kings, on the 6th of January. This worked well in agricultural societies in cold Europe because unless Sven and Gunter wanted to throw snowballs or hunt wolves or count icicles or something there wasn’t a whole lot to do in mid-winter except stay indoors next to the fire.
While Martin Luther was rather fond of Christmas – and was devoted to the Blessed Mother, too – other reformers said “Bah, humbug!” to Christmas and forbade it under penalty of law. In England and in the colonies Puritans and their spiritual descendants, including Baptists and Methodists, were sternly opposed to the celebration of Christmas as Romish superstition. To this day some evangelical congregations will not open the church doors when Christmas falls on a weekday.
In Scotland, Christmas was banned for over four hundred years, and not restored until 1958. 1958. Not 1658 or 1758 or even 1858. 1958. Put Christ into Christmas? Nae, laddie, ye’d better not be thinkin’ such evil thoughts.
Christmas as we know it is pretty much an invention of Charles Dickens, who imagined a merrie old English Christmas that never really was and wrote it into his books. Dickens’ Christmas is little more than some vague, fuzzy good feelings and some innocent partying, although he does allow his characters to walk to divine services on Christmas morning.
Christmas trees are a German tradition (someone will bring up the pagans at this point, and I say that if the pagans thought well of trees, good for them) Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha remembered the Christmas trees of his youth and popularized them in England. American anglophiles followed the lead of Victoria and Albert, and Christmas trees became a symbol of Christmas in the English-speaking world late in the 19th century.
Christmas was and is a Feast Day of the Church, a day in which the Incarnation is realized. Its other main purpose seems to be to serve as an institutional inadequacy for grumpy people to fault.
Well, grumpy people, that’s all right. Perhaps we do eat more than we should on Christmas, and buy too much stuff, and indulge our children more than we ought to, but it’s all a great deal of fun anyway.
"Let the children have their night of fun and laughter,let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play.Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasuresbefore we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us,resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring,these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritanceor denied their right to live in a free and decent world.And so, in God's mercy, a happy Christmas to you all."
-- Winston Churchill, 1941
Every year some folks take up their crayons and write querulously to the newspapers to demand that Christ be returned to Christmas, as if the newspapers are somehow at fault because Christmas is not what the writers of letters to the editor think it ought to be.
The real irony is that for much of Christian history Christ was not in Christmas because there was no Christmas at all.
Christmas as a Feast of the Church was formally established by Pope Julius I in 350. Even then our poor, ignorant, superstitious ancestors only went to church on Christmas to worship God, and failed to buy masses of made-in-China stuff.
Over time, European nations slowly developed the concept of the twelve days, keeping Christmas from the 25th of December until the Feast of the Epiphany, or Three Kings, on the 6th of January. This worked well in agricultural societies in cold Europe because unless Sven and Gunter wanted to throw snowballs or hunt wolves or count icicles or something there wasn’t a whole lot to do in mid-winter except stay indoors next to the fire.
While Martin Luther was rather fond of Christmas – and was devoted to the Blessed Mother, too – other reformers said “Bah, humbug!” to Christmas and forbade it under penalty of law. In England and in the colonies Puritans and their spiritual descendants, including Baptists and Methodists, were sternly opposed to the celebration of Christmas as Romish superstition. To this day some evangelical congregations will not open the church doors when Christmas falls on a weekday.
In Scotland, Christmas was banned for over four hundred years, and not restored until 1958. 1958. Not 1658 or 1758 or even 1858. 1958. Put Christ into Christmas? Nae, laddie, ye’d better not be thinkin’ such evil thoughts.
Christmas as we know it is pretty much an invention of Charles Dickens, who imagined a merrie old English Christmas that never really was and wrote it into his books. Dickens’ Christmas is little more than some vague, fuzzy good feelings and some innocent partying, although he does allow his characters to walk to divine services on Christmas morning.
Christmas trees are a German tradition (someone will bring up the pagans at this point, and I say that if the pagans thought well of trees, good for them) Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha remembered the Christmas trees of his youth and popularized them in England. American anglophiles followed the lead of Victoria and Albert, and Christmas trees became a symbol of Christmas in the English-speaking world late in the 19th century.
Christmas was and is a Feast Day of the Church, a day in which the Incarnation is realized. Its other main purpose seems to be to serve as an institutional inadequacy for grumpy people to fault.
Well, grumpy people, that’s all right. Perhaps we do eat more than we should on Christmas, and buy too much stuff, and indulge our children more than we ought to, but it’s all a great deal of fun anyway.
"Let the children have their night of fun and laughter,let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play.Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasuresbefore we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us,resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring,these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritanceor denied their right to live in a free and decent world.And so, in God's mercy, a happy Christmas to you all."
-- Winston Churchill, 1941
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Drug Testing at Valley Forge
Mack Hall
Last week the most recent drug scandal took everyone’s attention away from lead-painted Chinese Christmas toys, and no wonder. Who among us has not walked across a dark parking lot fearing an attack by a spaced-out baseball team leaping out from behind a Yugo? And that scary rustle of leaves outside one’s bedroom window in the middle of the night – that’s not Grendel; that’s a steroid-zombie outfielder hungry for human flesh.
George Mitchell’s many pages of he-said / he-said (there seems to be no she-said) tittle-tattle and McCarthy-ite lists are interesting reading, but one doubts that Mr. Mitchell himself will be required to pee into a cup before he gets paid lots and lots of taxpayers’ money for repeating gossip.
If the drug menace is properly addressed in baseball players, the focus should be expanded to practitioners other critical fields of endeavor, such as chess players, cooking-show hosts, and dancing-with-the-stars contestants.
The purity of sport – but no drug-testing for newscasters, writers, movie stars, or the weird little man in the bedsheet mumbling what he says are prayers at the airplane departure gate.
How drug-free and clear is the mind of someone freezing – since the ice has cut the power to his heater -- in midwestern blizzards while working out in said mind – since the ice has cut the power to his computer -- a stern letter to capitalist oppressors about global warming?
People who walk around with tin crickets stuck to their ears and talking to themselves are definitely in need of testing for something – such as a life.
Have you noticed that drug testing is aimed at the working people in America, not at the deadbeats? An argument can be made that a pilot or trucker or railway engineer should be tested for drugs, but why are lazy, useless layabouts (Congress comes to mind) the pilot or trucker or railway engineer must support never tested?
If a young man must pee into a cup before throwing a baseball, should not a priest or minister do the same before giving a sermon? After all, which event is more important?
If a citizen is accused of a drug-related crime, true justice requires that the investigators and attorneys and judges prove themselves drug-free first – here’s your cup, your honor.
The Constitution gives the people three branches of government – the executive, the legislative, and the judicial; no mention is made in that venerable document of fourth and fifth branches, the contract medical lab and MySpace. Let us have a return to justice for all, not suspicion and humiliation for some Americans and class privilege for others.
Last week the most recent drug scandal took everyone’s attention away from lead-painted Chinese Christmas toys, and no wonder. Who among us has not walked across a dark parking lot fearing an attack by a spaced-out baseball team leaping out from behind a Yugo? And that scary rustle of leaves outside one’s bedroom window in the middle of the night – that’s not Grendel; that’s a steroid-zombie outfielder hungry for human flesh.
George Mitchell’s many pages of he-said / he-said (there seems to be no she-said) tittle-tattle and McCarthy-ite lists are interesting reading, but one doubts that Mr. Mitchell himself will be required to pee into a cup before he gets paid lots and lots of taxpayers’ money for repeating gossip.
If the drug menace is properly addressed in baseball players, the focus should be expanded to practitioners other critical fields of endeavor, such as chess players, cooking-show hosts, and dancing-with-the-stars contestants.
The purity of sport – but no drug-testing for newscasters, writers, movie stars, or the weird little man in the bedsheet mumbling what he says are prayers at the airplane departure gate.
How drug-free and clear is the mind of someone freezing – since the ice has cut the power to his heater -- in midwestern blizzards while working out in said mind – since the ice has cut the power to his computer -- a stern letter to capitalist oppressors about global warming?
People who walk around with tin crickets stuck to their ears and talking to themselves are definitely in need of testing for something – such as a life.
Have you noticed that drug testing is aimed at the working people in America, not at the deadbeats? An argument can be made that a pilot or trucker or railway engineer should be tested for drugs, but why are lazy, useless layabouts (Congress comes to mind) the pilot or trucker or railway engineer must support never tested?
If a young man must pee into a cup before throwing a baseball, should not a priest or minister do the same before giving a sermon? After all, which event is more important?
If a citizen is accused of a drug-related crime, true justice requires that the investigators and attorneys and judges prove themselves drug-free first – here’s your cup, your honor.
The Constitution gives the people three branches of government – the executive, the legislative, and the judicial; no mention is made in that venerable document of fourth and fifth branches, the contract medical lab and MySpace. Let us have a return to justice for all, not suspicion and humiliation for some Americans and class privilege for others.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Don't You Care About Arboreal Lemurs?
Mack Hall
A friend carries a special little leather wallet just for carrying extra batteries for his hearing aids, said batteries apparently enjoying the life span of a Hershey’s Kiss at a T.O.P.S. meeting.
My friend clearly does not understand that by buying and using chemical-laden batteries he is contributing to global warming, poisoning tuna, and depriving Sudan of precious metals so desperately needed for swords for people to wave about in street demonstrations whenever a camera appears.
In the Spirit of Gaia at this season of the Generic Inclusive Winter Fest it is high time for people with disabilities to make some sacrifices and do their part to help make Mother Earth a better place for fire ants, rattlesnakes, wasps, pond scum, and aging hippies.
Why can’t people with hearing issues wear little solar panels to recharge their hearing-aid batteries? A man wearing a solar display on his head would be telling the world “I care about tree frogs.”
And then there are those selfish people with bacterial infections. Antibiotics are made by evil pharmaceutical companies killing NATURAL LIVING CREATURES! Imagine living your life in the forest as a happy little mold spore just hangin’ out and singing songs to the Earth Goddess. And then some beastly scientist comes along and kills you and uses your natural essences to save some rotten human’s earth-polluting life! Withholding antibiotics and letting your child or other family member suffer from eboli says “I care about fungi.”
You who are sight-impaired – do you have any idea how much electricity an operating room set up for a cataract operation takes away from the third world? Do you!? Ha! I thought not. Giving up books, television, the beauties of nature, and watching your grandchildren grow up says “I care about the rain forest.”
Prosthetics? Wheelchairs? Walking sticks? If every American with mobility problems turned in his or her assistance devices to the nearest recycling center, Al Gore would enjoy a newer jet plane for flying to environmental conferences all over the world. Limping or crawling says “I care about getting Al Gore another I’m-so-special award.”
Dental work? I think not. If you take care of your teeth you might then gnaw and chew the flesh of iddy biddy widdle bunny wabbits and harp seals, and then where would we be? Gumming vegetable mush says “I care about anthropomorphizing our forest friends.”
And finally a word about chronic breathing problems: the evil oxygen bottle industry kills countless dolphins each year by upsetting the balance of Mother Nature so humans with respiratory diseases can take oxygen away from vegetarian humpbacked whales, and, like, y’know, elves an’ stuff. Giving up breathing says “I care about arboreal lemurs in East Timor.” Well, not actually, of course, because if you can’t breathe you can’t talk, but with your dying gasp you can think happy thoughts about our forest friends holding paws, claws, and tentacles while singing “The Circle of Life – No Humans Allowed.”
Former Vice-President Al Gore, who, like Monica Lewinsky, served under President Clinton, gets $200,000.00 a speech for babbling stuff rather like this. Just send in the money, folks.
A friend carries a special little leather wallet just for carrying extra batteries for his hearing aids, said batteries apparently enjoying the life span of a Hershey’s Kiss at a T.O.P.S. meeting.
My friend clearly does not understand that by buying and using chemical-laden batteries he is contributing to global warming, poisoning tuna, and depriving Sudan of precious metals so desperately needed for swords for people to wave about in street demonstrations whenever a camera appears.
In the Spirit of Gaia at this season of the Generic Inclusive Winter Fest it is high time for people with disabilities to make some sacrifices and do their part to help make Mother Earth a better place for fire ants, rattlesnakes, wasps, pond scum, and aging hippies.
Why can’t people with hearing issues wear little solar panels to recharge their hearing-aid batteries? A man wearing a solar display on his head would be telling the world “I care about tree frogs.”
And then there are those selfish people with bacterial infections. Antibiotics are made by evil pharmaceutical companies killing NATURAL LIVING CREATURES! Imagine living your life in the forest as a happy little mold spore just hangin’ out and singing songs to the Earth Goddess. And then some beastly scientist comes along and kills you and uses your natural essences to save some rotten human’s earth-polluting life! Withholding antibiotics and letting your child or other family member suffer from eboli says “I care about fungi.”
You who are sight-impaired – do you have any idea how much electricity an operating room set up for a cataract operation takes away from the third world? Do you!? Ha! I thought not. Giving up books, television, the beauties of nature, and watching your grandchildren grow up says “I care about the rain forest.”
Prosthetics? Wheelchairs? Walking sticks? If every American with mobility problems turned in his or her assistance devices to the nearest recycling center, Al Gore would enjoy a newer jet plane for flying to environmental conferences all over the world. Limping or crawling says “I care about getting Al Gore another I’m-so-special award.”
Dental work? I think not. If you take care of your teeth you might then gnaw and chew the flesh of iddy biddy widdle bunny wabbits and harp seals, and then where would we be? Gumming vegetable mush says “I care about anthropomorphizing our forest friends.”
And finally a word about chronic breathing problems: the evil oxygen bottle industry kills countless dolphins each year by upsetting the balance of Mother Nature so humans with respiratory diseases can take oxygen away from vegetarian humpbacked whales, and, like, y’know, elves an’ stuff. Giving up breathing says “I care about arboreal lemurs in East Timor.” Well, not actually, of course, because if you can’t breathe you can’t talk, but with your dying gasp you can think happy thoughts about our forest friends holding paws, claws, and tentacles while singing “The Circle of Life – No Humans Allowed.”
Former Vice-President Al Gore, who, like Monica Lewinsky, served under President Clinton, gets $200,000.00 a speech for babbling stuff rather like this. Just send in the money, folks.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Kyle Field
Mack Hall
“The Credit Belongs to the Man…”
People of faith have long made pilgrimages to holy places: Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostella, Mariazell, Canterbury, and Kyle Field.
With high hopes we ascended to The City, College Station, last Friday, and after ritual ablutions walked slowly and with awe through the wide gates and into The Temple of the Twelfth Man, there to watch the Kirbyville Wildcats in ritual combat with some team from some burg nobody ever heard of. After all, the town now boasts four traffic lights, and the envious citizenry of lesser cities regard Kirbyville with awe.
Texas towns regard the Wildcats with even more awe, for their teams were home on this third week after the end of the regular seasons.
Thus, Kyle Field was perfect for the mighty, mighty Wildcats, whatever the questionable merits of That Other Team, May The Fleas of a Thousand Hamsters Infest Their Tents.
Named for a long-ago professor who bought the ground for a few hundred dollars, Kyle Field is home to many Texas A & M traditions such as The Twelfth Man, standing throughout a football game, Midnight Yell Practice, firing a cannon for every touchdown, and firing head coaches almost as often.
Don’t pity sacked A & M coaches (their name is Legion), though; they get to keep the taxpayers’ money promised them in the practice of polycoachery.
Another remarkable fact about Kyle Field that while an excessive demonstration of enthusiasm in the end zone is penalized, it’s okay to bury dogs there.
Y’r ‘umble scrivener was blessed with a sideline pass, which he will perhaps frame and display next to his St. Thomas Becket medal from Canterbury. However, the pass was unnecessary; Kyle Field is not sealed off from the bleachers (upon which no one is to sit anyway). Whatever eccentricities may be attributed to Aggies, they apparently behave themselves at football games and needn’t be penned up.
And the field itself – it’s just a regulation football field, though one with the best groundskeepers in all Christendom. What makes the place awesome is the masonry and ironmongery, rows and rows and rows of seats (upon which no one is ever to sit, remember) ascending high into the troposphere in decked layers, standing room for some 80,000 Aggies and fans, the cloud-bedecked aerial regions a tribute to the muscles, eyesight, and lung capacity of Fish.
There were never 80,000 Kirbyvillains in history, but those who were there on this historic Friday night betook themselves to the oldest part of the bleachers (upon which they seldom sat), and made enough merry noise to do credit to Kyle Field’s reputation for opponent-intimidating racket.
The best of seasons must close, and on Monday the Wildcats turned in their gear, cleaned out their lockers, and said farewell to an important part of their youth.
There can be no better ground than historic Kyle Field on which to end a football season. Whatever adventures the lads make for themselves in the future, they will be among the few men in the world who can say “When I played football on Kyle Field…”
And perhaps just a well, people will stand (for one must not sit) in Kyle Field and say, in awe, “Kirbyville played football here.”
“The Credit Belongs to the Man…”
People of faith have long made pilgrimages to holy places: Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostella, Mariazell, Canterbury, and Kyle Field.
With high hopes we ascended to The City, College Station, last Friday, and after ritual ablutions walked slowly and with awe through the wide gates and into The Temple of the Twelfth Man, there to watch the Kirbyville Wildcats in ritual combat with some team from some burg nobody ever heard of. After all, the town now boasts four traffic lights, and the envious citizenry of lesser cities regard Kirbyville with awe.
Texas towns regard the Wildcats with even more awe, for their teams were home on this third week after the end of the regular seasons.
Thus, Kyle Field was perfect for the mighty, mighty Wildcats, whatever the questionable merits of That Other Team, May The Fleas of a Thousand Hamsters Infest Their Tents.
Named for a long-ago professor who bought the ground for a few hundred dollars, Kyle Field is home to many Texas A & M traditions such as The Twelfth Man, standing throughout a football game, Midnight Yell Practice, firing a cannon for every touchdown, and firing head coaches almost as often.
Don’t pity sacked A & M coaches (their name is Legion), though; they get to keep the taxpayers’ money promised them in the practice of polycoachery.
Another remarkable fact about Kyle Field that while an excessive demonstration of enthusiasm in the end zone is penalized, it’s okay to bury dogs there.
Y’r ‘umble scrivener was blessed with a sideline pass, which he will perhaps frame and display next to his St. Thomas Becket medal from Canterbury. However, the pass was unnecessary; Kyle Field is not sealed off from the bleachers (upon which no one is to sit anyway). Whatever eccentricities may be attributed to Aggies, they apparently behave themselves at football games and needn’t be penned up.
And the field itself – it’s just a regulation football field, though one with the best groundskeepers in all Christendom. What makes the place awesome is the masonry and ironmongery, rows and rows and rows of seats (upon which no one is ever to sit, remember) ascending high into the troposphere in decked layers, standing room for some 80,000 Aggies and fans, the cloud-bedecked aerial regions a tribute to the muscles, eyesight, and lung capacity of Fish.
There were never 80,000 Kirbyvillains in history, but those who were there on this historic Friday night betook themselves to the oldest part of the bleachers (upon which they seldom sat), and made enough merry noise to do credit to Kyle Field’s reputation for opponent-intimidating racket.
The best of seasons must close, and on Monday the Wildcats turned in their gear, cleaned out their lockers, and said farewell to an important part of their youth.
There can be no better ground than historic Kyle Field on which to end a football season. Whatever adventures the lads make for themselves in the future, they will be among the few men in the world who can say “When I played football on Kyle Field…”
And perhaps just a well, people will stand (for one must not sit) in Kyle Field and say, in awe, “Kirbyville played football here.”
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
– Teddy Roosevelt
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Monkey With all the Trimmings
Mack Hall
Monkey With all the Trimmings
Mrs. Mamie Manneh of New York faces trial for importing bits of dead monkey.
Back in 2006 customs inspectors examined twelve cardboard boxes mailed to Mrs. Manneh from West Africa. The manifest said that the boxes contained only dresses and dried fish, but beneath the fish was the late Curious George.
Mrs. Manneh said this must be some sort of mistake; she never ordered dead monkeys.
And one can understand. I don’t know how many times I’ve ordered a book or a watch or a shirt through the mail and gotten a parcel of dead monkey instead.
A search of Mrs. Manneh’s house revealed (I quote from the AP report) “a tiny, hairy arm” hidden in her garage.
Mrs. Manneh said that the arm was sent to her by God, and that consuming dead monkeys is a part of her religion.
She didn’t say whether or not they taste like chicken.
Mrs. Manneh’s attorney is claiming cultural insensitivity, while the feds are touchy about the importation of unregulated meat products with the potential for disease transmission.
Hey, anyone who gets teary-eyed about the little girl saying that every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings needn’t be snotty about other cultures, okay?
And, after all, Mr. Pickwick carried a big codfish with him to Dingley Dell for Christmas, and H.M. Government never asked for its papers.
Some of us wonder about a god who makes home delivery of meats. What, no side dishes? And is this religious discrimination against vegetarians?
Mrs. Manneh won’t be difficult to find for the trial; she’s in prison for trying to run over her husband. He’s upset because for now he must raise their twelve children by himself.
“Hey, kids, how about some yummy dachshunds for lunch?”
“Aw, Dad, we had dachshunds yesterday. Make us some hamster stew!”
Don’t tell me hamster stew is yucky. Ya want yucky? Watch any of those Hallmark Christmas movies.
A monkey on the table for Christmas? Well, maybe. Several weeks ago an Australian environmental group recommended eating kangaroos as an antidote to global warming (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22562480-662,00.html) and Heather Mills (Lady Paul McCartney) touts the drinking of rat’s milk (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/20/nmills120.xml).
Monkey and kangaroo, all washed down with rat’s milk. It doesn’t work for me, but then, as a friend suggested last week, I’m definitely lacking in sophistication.
Monkey With all the Trimmings
Mrs. Mamie Manneh of New York faces trial for importing bits of dead monkey.
Back in 2006 customs inspectors examined twelve cardboard boxes mailed to Mrs. Manneh from West Africa. The manifest said that the boxes contained only dresses and dried fish, but beneath the fish was the late Curious George.
Mrs. Manneh said this must be some sort of mistake; she never ordered dead monkeys.
And one can understand. I don’t know how many times I’ve ordered a book or a watch or a shirt through the mail and gotten a parcel of dead monkey instead.
A search of Mrs. Manneh’s house revealed (I quote from the AP report) “a tiny, hairy arm” hidden in her garage.
Mrs. Manneh said that the arm was sent to her by God, and that consuming dead monkeys is a part of her religion.
She didn’t say whether or not they taste like chicken.
Mrs. Manneh’s attorney is claiming cultural insensitivity, while the feds are touchy about the importation of unregulated meat products with the potential for disease transmission.
Hey, anyone who gets teary-eyed about the little girl saying that every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings needn’t be snotty about other cultures, okay?
And, after all, Mr. Pickwick carried a big codfish with him to Dingley Dell for Christmas, and H.M. Government never asked for its papers.
Some of us wonder about a god who makes home delivery of meats. What, no side dishes? And is this religious discrimination against vegetarians?
Mrs. Manneh won’t be difficult to find for the trial; she’s in prison for trying to run over her husband. He’s upset because for now he must raise their twelve children by himself.
“Hey, kids, how about some yummy dachshunds for lunch?”
“Aw, Dad, we had dachshunds yesterday. Make us some hamster stew!”
Don’t tell me hamster stew is yucky. Ya want yucky? Watch any of those Hallmark Christmas movies.
A monkey on the table for Christmas? Well, maybe. Several weeks ago an Australian environmental group recommended eating kangaroos as an antidote to global warming (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22562480-662,00.html) and Heather Mills (Lady Paul McCartney) touts the drinking of rat’s milk (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/20/nmills120.xml).
Monkey and kangaroo, all washed down with rat’s milk. It doesn’t work for me, but then, as a friend suggested last week, I’m definitely lacking in sophistication.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
The House That Rodney and His Friends Built
Mack Hall
-- Wordsworth
When Rodney died he left behind an unfinished garage and unfinished grandchildren, so on the Saturday morning following his funeral his friends mustered to work on the one and to inspire the others.
Rodney had his garage framed, a lacey assemblage exhibiting all the geometric constructs Miz Bonnie Carter taught us (well, taught Rodney, at least; the minds of some of us were rather resistant to pie are square) in the long ago, all open to an impossibly perfect autumn sky.
And that was the problem, of course; perfect autumn skies soon deteriorate into imperfect winter ones, and Rodney’s last project needed drying-in.
And so men and boys and a dog gathered, for what is a communal building project without some boys and a dog? Manly men with pickups and trailers sagging with lumber and air-powered tools and ladders and leather tool belts and camouflage ball caps and all the other impedimenta of the independent American yeomanry swarmed the joists and rafters noisily and happily, trailing pneumatic and electric lines and emitting clouds of sawdust and calling out numbers: "I need a four by eleven-and-a-half over here!"
All was much like a house-raising scene in a John Ford film, except that The Old West didn’t suffer from cell ‘phones.
One hopes that some government agency or some The People’s Progressive Committee Activist Front doesn’t send a committee of comrades or lawyers to investigate, but while the menfolk labored on the garages (three parking spaces, pump room, workshop, deck, upstairs apartment), the womenfolk (accept the John Ford-ism, okay?) set out lunch under the shade of an oak tree. Mr. Folk, Rodney’s ag teacher, led the assembly in prayer, a happy duty that until a week before would have fallen to Rodney.
The little boys and the little girls and the dog occasionally ran through the project to be fussed at, and then out to the field to play an all-day game of football whose curious and inexplicable (to adults) rules were invented for and limited to that one occasion. They ate too much and got sunburned and laughed and shrieked and scraped some knees and celebrated their childhood world out under the high blue sky and in the fields and woods of a perfect October day.
They will forever remember this week, when Papa died and was mourned, and then how on a marvelous day they burst forth from the sadness for a while to run wild in Papa’s field, which is exactly what he wanted for them. And they will remember how Papa’s friends joined in prayer and in fun and in work to push forward, in a small way, his life for them.
The children – they are the house being built. And they will remember.
I expect the hammering and sawing and noisy good fellowship were heard all the way from Magnolia Springs Cemetery.
-
"That in this moment there is life and food
For future years."
For future years."
-- Wordsworth
When Rodney died he left behind an unfinished garage and unfinished grandchildren, so on the Saturday morning following his funeral his friends mustered to work on the one and to inspire the others.
Rodney had his garage framed, a lacey assemblage exhibiting all the geometric constructs Miz Bonnie Carter taught us (well, taught Rodney, at least; the minds of some of us were rather resistant to pie are square) in the long ago, all open to an impossibly perfect autumn sky.
And that was the problem, of course; perfect autumn skies soon deteriorate into imperfect winter ones, and Rodney’s last project needed drying-in.
And so men and boys and a dog gathered, for what is a communal building project without some boys and a dog? Manly men with pickups and trailers sagging with lumber and air-powered tools and ladders and leather tool belts and camouflage ball caps and all the other impedimenta of the independent American yeomanry swarmed the joists and rafters noisily and happily, trailing pneumatic and electric lines and emitting clouds of sawdust and calling out numbers: "I need a four by eleven-and-a-half over here!"
All was much like a house-raising scene in a John Ford film, except that The Old West didn’t suffer from cell ‘phones.
One hopes that some government agency or some The People’s Progressive Committee Activist Front doesn’t send a committee of comrades or lawyers to investigate, but while the menfolk labored on the garages (three parking spaces, pump room, workshop, deck, upstairs apartment), the womenfolk (accept the John Ford-ism, okay?) set out lunch under the shade of an oak tree. Mr. Folk, Rodney’s ag teacher, led the assembly in prayer, a happy duty that until a week before would have fallen to Rodney.
The little boys and the little girls and the dog occasionally ran through the project to be fussed at, and then out to the field to play an all-day game of football whose curious and inexplicable (to adults) rules were invented for and limited to that one occasion. They ate too much and got sunburned and laughed and shrieked and scraped some knees and celebrated their childhood world out under the high blue sky and in the fields and woods of a perfect October day.
They will forever remember this week, when Papa died and was mourned, and then how on a marvelous day they burst forth from the sadness for a while to run wild in Papa’s field, which is exactly what he wanted for them. And they will remember how Papa’s friends joined in prayer and in fun and in work to push forward, in a small way, his life for them.
The children – they are the house being built. And they will remember.
I expect the hammering and sawing and noisy good fellowship were heard all the way from Magnolia Springs Cemetery.
-
Father of the Bridesmaid
Mack Hall
Once upon a time two Aggie chicks shared an apartment almost in the shadow of blessed Kyle Field in the holy city of College Station.
One cold night the blonde one telephoned the sort-of-blonde one: "Sarah, I’m at the gas station; I’ve locked my keys in my car. What do I do?"
And Sarah said "Just call Something-a-Lock; they’ll come out and open it up for twenty dollars."
"Okay," said Jan, "but will you come and wait with me?"
So Sarah left her studies (probably) and her big orange cat, and motored in her cute little blue Volkswagen to the gas station where, upon seeing Jan’s car, the car in which the keys were imprisoned, she remembered something she had long known but had forgotten in the moment of her friend’s stress: Jan’s car was a cute little red Jeep. With a cloth top.
This is a true blonde / Aggie story, but probably does not connect in any way with A & M’s just-wait’ll-next-year football season.
Both Jan and Sarah gave up their cute cars after graduation. Sarah now owns a sedate Republican Ford appropriate for a graduate student, and Jan owns a husband.
The wedding vows were exchanged in Cedar Bayou’s beautiful First United Methodist Church, a congregation dating from 1844. One knew immediately it was not a Catholic church because the music included "Panis Angelicus" and "Ave Maria." In a Catholic church music is now pretty much all about whining Jesuits abusing three endlessly recycled guitar chords on a poor recording made in 1968.
One of the many blessings of the service was that the bride and groom did not sing to each other.
Another blessing was that the minister sternly forbade amateur photography, which meant that the procession was spared the now common cell-phone-camera-Hitler-salute thing.
And yet another blessing was that the whole service came in at twenty-five minutes.
And another: the beautiful Sarah was honored to stand as one of Jan’s bridesmaids, and didn’t have to drive through a cold night to unfasten a Jeep’s cloth top.
But the greatest blessing of all was Jan, Sarah’s blue-jeans-and-hamburgers gal-pal of college days, now all grown up in a long, elegant gown, the most beautiful bride ever, on the most wonderful day of her life.
Once upon a time two Aggie chicks shared an apartment almost in the shadow of blessed Kyle Field in the holy city of College Station.
One cold night the blonde one telephoned the sort-of-blonde one: "Sarah, I’m at the gas station; I’ve locked my keys in my car. What do I do?"
And Sarah said "Just call Something-a-Lock; they’ll come out and open it up for twenty dollars."
"Okay," said Jan, "but will you come and wait with me?"
So Sarah left her studies (probably) and her big orange cat, and motored in her cute little blue Volkswagen to the gas station where, upon seeing Jan’s car, the car in which the keys were imprisoned, she remembered something she had long known but had forgotten in the moment of her friend’s stress: Jan’s car was a cute little red Jeep. With a cloth top.
This is a true blonde / Aggie story, but probably does not connect in any way with A & M’s just-wait’ll-next-year football season.
Both Jan and Sarah gave up their cute cars after graduation. Sarah now owns a sedate Republican Ford appropriate for a graduate student, and Jan owns a husband.
The wedding vows were exchanged in Cedar Bayou’s beautiful First United Methodist Church, a congregation dating from 1844. One knew immediately it was not a Catholic church because the music included "Panis Angelicus" and "Ave Maria." In a Catholic church music is now pretty much all about whining Jesuits abusing three endlessly recycled guitar chords on a poor recording made in 1968.
One of the many blessings of the service was that the bride and groom did not sing to each other.
Another blessing was that the minister sternly forbade amateur photography, which meant that the procession was spared the now common cell-phone-camera-Hitler-salute thing.
And yet another blessing was that the whole service came in at twenty-five minutes.
And another: the beautiful Sarah was honored to stand as one of Jan’s bridesmaids, and didn’t have to drive through a cold night to unfasten a Jeep’s cloth top.
But the greatest blessing of all was Jan, Sarah’s blue-jeans-and-hamburgers gal-pal of college days, now all grown up in a long, elegant gown, the most beautiful bride ever, on the most wonderful day of her life.
Thanksgiving Causes Global Warming
Mack Hall
Long, long ago the Mayflower was sunk by an iceberg and the Pilgrims stepped ashore with the Really, Really Revised New Interglobal Standard Golly-Gee-Wow Bible in, Like, Y’know, Today’s English to be greeted by Brandon Chingachgook and Tiffany Pocahontas walking across the land bridge from Asia and handing out fliers for the Golden Wampum Casino Hotel and Resort.
“Greetings,” said Captain Stubing. “We are the white heterosexual European male oppressors who have come here to steal your land and oppress you. Want some beads?”
“Hey, you can try those at the casino, double returns on the slots today,” replied Chingachgook. “Corn and codfish bar is free. And, um, look, you might want to try to step up to the dress code, okay?”
And so the Pilgrims and the Indians got together in peace and harmony, and held The First Thanksgiving, following another The First Thanksgiving sponsored by Martin Frobisher and companions some years earlier in Canada, and yet another The First Thanksgiving celebrated even earlier by Spanish explorers…um…white European male heterosexual oppressors…along the Rio Grande.
“I like turkey,” said Captain Bradford Stubing. “It tastes a lot like sophomore. Could use some more habanera sauce, though.”
“After dinner, let’s go invade the French in Canada or the Spanish in Florida,” suggested Miles Smith.
“Or we could just scream at the television awhile and then take a nap while the women clean up everything,” said Neville Van Winkle.
“It’s their job,” agreed The Last of the Mohicans. “You boys have another cigar; tobacco is our most heartfelt gift to you.”
“Clean everything up yourselves,” said Tiffany, “I’ve got to study for my bar exam.”
And so America grew, with the descendants of all the above learning how to sneer at each other disapprovingly as the centuries passed. At future Thanksgivings they made their children wear construction-paper hats and construction-paper headdresses in styles known only to Currier and Ives, invented global warming to replace ghost stories, drove Toyotas, and gave away the fruits of their labors to mainland China in exchange for toxic landfills of plastic junk. They ate genetically-engineered turkey from grossly fat birds that couldn’t even reproduce without the help of a weird little man with a syringe, thought that milk came from the supermarket, came to disapprove of themselves and their democracy, invented thousands of religious denominations and then generally avoided them, believed with all their hearts (tho’ not their brains) that polar bears were drowning, lived in fear of unmarked black UN helicopters, thought Barry Bonds terribly wronged, and took turns testing each other for drugs.
And yet by the time this is published the United States will have sent the Air Force and the Navy to Bangladesh with food, water, medical aid, tents, and material aid to help put things together after the flooding.
That would be the United States Air Force and the United States Navy commanded by the evil Yankee imperialist cowboy George Bush – don’t look for the Europeans to be kicking in to help others after a disaster; they’re too sophisticated.
Yup, we Americans may be a little confused about our history, and maybe more confused about our future, but we’re the best thing happening on this planet, and that’s reason enough for giving thanks.
Long, long ago the Mayflower was sunk by an iceberg and the Pilgrims stepped ashore with the Really, Really Revised New Interglobal Standard Golly-Gee-Wow Bible in, Like, Y’know, Today’s English to be greeted by Brandon Chingachgook and Tiffany Pocahontas walking across the land bridge from Asia and handing out fliers for the Golden Wampum Casino Hotel and Resort.
“Greetings,” said Captain Stubing. “We are the white heterosexual European male oppressors who have come here to steal your land and oppress you. Want some beads?”
“Hey, you can try those at the casino, double returns on the slots today,” replied Chingachgook. “Corn and codfish bar is free. And, um, look, you might want to try to step up to the dress code, okay?”
And so the Pilgrims and the Indians got together in peace and harmony, and held The First Thanksgiving, following another The First Thanksgiving sponsored by Martin Frobisher and companions some years earlier in Canada, and yet another The First Thanksgiving celebrated even earlier by Spanish explorers…um…white European male heterosexual oppressors…along the Rio Grande.
“I like turkey,” said Captain Bradford Stubing. “It tastes a lot like sophomore. Could use some more habanera sauce, though.”
“After dinner, let’s go invade the French in Canada or the Spanish in Florida,” suggested Miles Smith.
“Or we could just scream at the television awhile and then take a nap while the women clean up everything,” said Neville Van Winkle.
“It’s their job,” agreed The Last of the Mohicans. “You boys have another cigar; tobacco is our most heartfelt gift to you.”
“Clean everything up yourselves,” said Tiffany, “I’ve got to study for my bar exam.”
And so America grew, with the descendants of all the above learning how to sneer at each other disapprovingly as the centuries passed. At future Thanksgivings they made their children wear construction-paper hats and construction-paper headdresses in styles known only to Currier and Ives, invented global warming to replace ghost stories, drove Toyotas, and gave away the fruits of their labors to mainland China in exchange for toxic landfills of plastic junk. They ate genetically-engineered turkey from grossly fat birds that couldn’t even reproduce without the help of a weird little man with a syringe, thought that milk came from the supermarket, came to disapprove of themselves and their democracy, invented thousands of religious denominations and then generally avoided them, believed with all their hearts (tho’ not their brains) that polar bears were drowning, lived in fear of unmarked black UN helicopters, thought Barry Bonds terribly wronged, and took turns testing each other for drugs.
And yet by the time this is published the United States will have sent the Air Force and the Navy to Bangladesh with food, water, medical aid, tents, and material aid to help put things together after the flooding.
That would be the United States Air Force and the United States Navy commanded by the evil Yankee imperialist cowboy George Bush – don’t look for the Europeans to be kicking in to help others after a disaster; they’re too sophisticated.
Yup, we Americans may be a little confused about our history, and maybe more confused about our future, but we’re the best thing happening on this planet, and that’s reason enough for giving thanks.
Thanksgiving Causes Global Warming
Mack Hall
Long, long ago the Mayflower was sunk by an iceberg and the Pilgrims stepped ashore with the Really, Really Revised New Interglobal Standard Golly-Gee-Wow Bible in, Like, Y’know, Today’s English to be greeted by Brandon Chingachgook and Tiffany Pocahontas walking across the land bridge from Asia and handing out fliers for the Golden Wampum Casino Hotel and Resort.
“Greetings,” said Captain Stubing. “We are the white heterosexual European male oppressors who have come here to steal your land and oppress you. Want some beads?”
“Hey, you can try those at the casino, double returns on the slots today,” replied Chingachgook. “Corn and codfish bar is free. And, um, look, you might want to try to step up to the dress code, okay?”
And so the Pilgrims and the Indians got together in peace and harmony, and held The First Thanksgiving, following another The First Thanksgiving sponsored by Martin Frobisher and companions some years earlier in Canada, and yet another The First Thanksgiving celebrated even earlier by Spanish explorers…um…white European male heterosexual oppressors…along the Rio Grande.
“I like turkey,” said Captain Bradford Stubing. “It tastes a lot like sophomore. Could use some more habanera sauce, though.”
“After dinner, let’s go invade the French in Canada or the Spanish in Florida,” suggested Miles Smith.
“Or we could just scream at the television awhile and then take a nap while the women clean up everything,” said Neville Van Winkle.
“It’s their job,” agreed The Last of the Mohicans. “You boys have another cigar; tobacco is our most heartfelt gift to you.”
“Clean everything up yourselves,” said Tiffany, “I’ve got to study for my bar exam.”
And so America grew, with the descendants of all the above learning how to sneer at each other disapprovingly as the centuries passed. At future Thanksgivings they made their children wear construction-paper hats and construction-paper headdresses in styles known only to Currier and Ives, invented global warming to replace ghost stories, drove Toyotas, and gave away the fruits of their labors to mainland China in exchange for toxic landfills of plastic junk. They ate genetically-engineered turkey from grossly fat birds that couldn’t even reproduce without the help of a weird little man with a syringe, thought that milk came from the supermarket, came to disapprove of themselves and their democracy, invented thousands of religious denominations and then generally avoided them, believed with all their hearts (tho’ not their brains) that polar bears were drowning, lived in fear of unmarked black UN helicopters, thought Barry Bonds terribly wronged, and took turns testing each other for drugs.
And yet by the time this is published the United States will have sent the Air Force and the Navy to Bangladesh with food, water, medical aid, tents, and material aid to help put things together after the flooding.
That would be the United States Air Force and the United States Navy commanded by the evil Yankee imperialist cowboy George Bush – don’t look for the Europeans to be kicking in to help others after a disaster; they’re too sophisticated.
Yup, we Americans may be a little confused about our history, and maybe more confused about our future, but we’re the best thing happening on this planet, and that’s reason enough for giving thanks.
Long, long ago the Mayflower was sunk by an iceberg and the Pilgrims stepped ashore with the Really, Really Revised New Interglobal Standard Golly-Gee-Wow Bible in, Like, Y’know, Today’s English to be greeted by Brandon Chingachgook and Tiffany Pocahontas walking across the land bridge from Asia and handing out fliers for the Golden Wampum Casino Hotel and Resort.
“Greetings,” said Captain Stubing. “We are the white heterosexual European male oppressors who have come here to steal your land and oppress you. Want some beads?”
“Hey, you can try those at the casino, double returns on the slots today,” replied Chingachgook. “Corn and codfish bar is free. And, um, look, you might want to try to step up to the dress code, okay?”
And so the Pilgrims and the Indians got together in peace and harmony, and held The First Thanksgiving, following another The First Thanksgiving sponsored by Martin Frobisher and companions some years earlier in Canada, and yet another The First Thanksgiving celebrated even earlier by Spanish explorers…um…white European male heterosexual oppressors…along the Rio Grande.
“I like turkey,” said Captain Bradford Stubing. “It tastes a lot like sophomore. Could use some more habanera sauce, though.”
“After dinner, let’s go invade the French in Canada or the Spanish in Florida,” suggested Miles Smith.
“Or we could just scream at the television awhile and then take a nap while the women clean up everything,” said Neville Van Winkle.
“It’s their job,” agreed The Last of the Mohicans. “You boys have another cigar; tobacco is our most heartfelt gift to you.”
“Clean everything up yourselves,” said Tiffany, “I’ve got to study for my bar exam.”
And so America grew, with the descendants of all the above learning how to sneer at each other disapprovingly as the centuries passed. At future Thanksgivings they made their children wear construction-paper hats and construction-paper headdresses in styles known only to Currier and Ives, invented global warming to replace ghost stories, drove Toyotas, and gave away the fruits of their labors to mainland China in exchange for toxic landfills of plastic junk. They ate genetically-engineered turkey from grossly fat birds that couldn’t even reproduce without the help of a weird little man with a syringe, thought that milk came from the supermarket, came to disapprove of themselves and their democracy, invented thousands of religious denominations and then generally avoided them, believed with all their hearts (tho’ not their brains) that polar bears were drowning, lived in fear of unmarked black UN helicopters, thought Barry Bonds terribly wronged, and took turns testing each other for drugs.
And yet by the time this is published the United States will have sent the Air Force and the Navy to Bangladesh with food, water, medical aid, tents, and material aid to help put things together after the flooding.
That would be the United States Air Force and the United States Navy commanded by the evil Yankee imperialist cowboy George Bush – don’t look for the Europeans to be kicking in to help others after a disaster; they’re too sophisticated.
Yup, we Americans may be a little confused about our history, and maybe more confused about our future, but we’re the best thing happening on this planet, and that’s reason enough for giving thanks.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Pontius Pilate's Pleynt
Mack Hall
Pontius Pilate's Pleynt
Pontius Pilate's Pleynt
My Caesar and my Empire have I served,
A diplomatic functionary, true
To my distant duties, never unnerved
By greedy Greek or perfidious Jew.
Outside the arca archa have I thought,
Festooned my desk and office with awards;
My Caesar’s honour only have I sought
While sparing for myself but few rewards.
I built with focused care my resume’
And filed each memorandum, note, and scrip;
I justly ruled (no matter what they say),
And seldom sent men to the cross or whip.
But, oh! That thing about an open vault –
I never got it. And why was it my fault?
Sunday, November 4, 2007
L'Affaire Bagdad: The American Diplomatic Service Inaction, not In Action
“I shall have to delay you for a few minutes. You see the Legation is only just open and we have not yet got our full equipment. We are expecting the rubber stamp any minute now.”
-- A diplomat in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop
The American diplomatic corps, the envy of the world of pallid wine and crumbly cheese, is afraid to go to Bagdad – so afraid that no one is volunteering, and diplomats may have to be dragged out of cocktail parties in Ottawa and the racing season at Epson Downs and ordered to report to The Cradle of Civilization.
Working Americans whose taxes support civil servants can certainly understand the reluctance of diplomats to serve civility in Bagdad. What towboat captain or steelworker cannot appreciate the difficulty in finding a really good tailor in Port Said Street? And, after all, embassy soirees in Bagdad are more likely to be explosive rather than sparkling, and the paucity of wine merchants is appalling, simply appalling. Worse, the shopping along Muthana Al Shaiban Street is simply not up to Paris standards, m’dear. Picnicking along the Tigris is quite impossible given the heat, and trying to punt through the bobbing, malodorous corpses is so, so tiresome.
A with-it diplomat in Bagdad can only resent the sad reality that so many of his personal bodyguards are not Harvard or Yale, and don’t appreciate amusing anecdotes about yachting with Walter Cronkite off Martha’s Vineyard and tittering about people who actually have jobs and love America.
And then there are the Christian priests in Iraq. In New England, anyone who’s anyone keeps a tame bishop or two for amusement. In Iraq, though, priests and bishops are not much fun at parties, didn’t go to the right schools, and suffer a tendency to be martyred by the sort of people American bishops like to be palsy with for the cameras. Yawn.
Doesn’t anyone understand that stern diplomatic notes can be exchanged just as easily after one’s afternoon nap in Brussels as well as after one’s afternoon nap in Iraq? And the embassy in Brussels is so convenient to the theatre.
And then there’s the bother of domestic staff in Bagdad. When interviewing and hiring a suitable kitchen staff (soooooooo exhausting), one must check references very carefully so that one does not hire a pastry chef who might bring explosives into the morning room. The maids, the housekeeper, the porters, the gardeners – can one find staff up to scratch in Iraq? Yes, a life of public service is terribly demanding.
Entertaining can be quite a bother too. In Europe one knows that a grand duke l’orange takes precedent over a charge’ du flatus, but how does one seat a Sunny mahdi and a Shirty sheik at dinner without causing a row? Gracious! And what is the proper dress for receptions during a rocket attack – black-tie body armor or white-tie body armor?
And must those beastly American soldiers get blown up in the street outside the embassy? Can’t they go out to the countryside and get blown up there? An American diplomat needs his sleep, after all, and having all those persons from the flyover states fighting and dying just outside is so unseemly.
The American diplomatic service – always a step and six feet of reinforced concrete behind our fighting men and women. Why should they have to serve in Bagdad – or anywhere else?
-- A diplomat in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop
The American diplomatic corps, the envy of the world of pallid wine and crumbly cheese, is afraid to go to Bagdad – so afraid that no one is volunteering, and diplomats may have to be dragged out of cocktail parties in Ottawa and the racing season at Epson Downs and ordered to report to The Cradle of Civilization.
Working Americans whose taxes support civil servants can certainly understand the reluctance of diplomats to serve civility in Bagdad. What towboat captain or steelworker cannot appreciate the difficulty in finding a really good tailor in Port Said Street? And, after all, embassy soirees in Bagdad are more likely to be explosive rather than sparkling, and the paucity of wine merchants is appalling, simply appalling. Worse, the shopping along Muthana Al Shaiban Street is simply not up to Paris standards, m’dear. Picnicking along the Tigris is quite impossible given the heat, and trying to punt through the bobbing, malodorous corpses is so, so tiresome.
A with-it diplomat in Bagdad can only resent the sad reality that so many of his personal bodyguards are not Harvard or Yale, and don’t appreciate amusing anecdotes about yachting with Walter Cronkite off Martha’s Vineyard and tittering about people who actually have jobs and love America.
And then there are the Christian priests in Iraq. In New England, anyone who’s anyone keeps a tame bishop or two for amusement. In Iraq, though, priests and bishops are not much fun at parties, didn’t go to the right schools, and suffer a tendency to be martyred by the sort of people American bishops like to be palsy with for the cameras. Yawn.
Doesn’t anyone understand that stern diplomatic notes can be exchanged just as easily after one’s afternoon nap in Brussels as well as after one’s afternoon nap in Iraq? And the embassy in Brussels is so convenient to the theatre.
And then there’s the bother of domestic staff in Bagdad. When interviewing and hiring a suitable kitchen staff (soooooooo exhausting), one must check references very carefully so that one does not hire a pastry chef who might bring explosives into the morning room. The maids, the housekeeper, the porters, the gardeners – can one find staff up to scratch in Iraq? Yes, a life of public service is terribly demanding.
Entertaining can be quite a bother too. In Europe one knows that a grand duke l’orange takes precedent over a charge’ du flatus, but how does one seat a Sunny mahdi and a Shirty sheik at dinner without causing a row? Gracious! And what is the proper dress for receptions during a rocket attack – black-tie body armor or white-tie body armor?
And must those beastly American soldiers get blown up in the street outside the embassy? Can’t they go out to the countryside and get blown up there? An American diplomat needs his sleep, after all, and having all those persons from the flyover states fighting and dying just outside is so unseemly.
The American diplomatic service – always a step and six feet of reinforced concrete behind our fighting men and women. Why should they have to serve in Bagdad – or anywhere else?
Sunday, October 28, 2007
News From the Real World
Researchers from a Welsh university have discovered a 400-year-old clam off Iceland. When the clam was transported to Wales it immediately demanded refugee status, a government apartment, social services in its own language, and a weekly check, and declared a bitter hatred of all things Welsh.
California prisoners are helping fight wildfires at one dollar an hour, while FEMA employees have held a completely fake press conference in order to deceive the American people. Given their record, perhaps FEMA staffers should be the ones dressed in orange jump suits and working for a dollar an hour.
According to the BBC, many Bolivians consider a llama fetus to be sacred. Perhaps the typical resident of La Paz drives around with a llama fetus on his dashboard, or carries one in a knitted cover. Maybe Bolivians have silly religious arguments that are prefaced with “Well, my llama fetus says….”
Do Bolivian schools feature a Meet Me at the Pole With Your Llama Fetus day?
A theorist (whatever that is) from the London School of Economics predicts that the human race will split into two different species. This is old news, as there are already two kinds of human beings, those who believe there are two kinds of human beings and those who do not.
Who does a grief counselor visit when he has a grief?
According to The New York Times, Democrats in Congress are planning a shorter work-week. And some people say there is no God.
California’s state environmentalist pests are distressed about the air pollution from the fires. Smoke. It’s called smoke.
Homeland Security has pressured New York to grant driving licenses to illegal aliens. So what will New York do if illegal aliens drive without licenses? Arrest them for violating the law?
The Italian government has determined that a series of unexplained house fires is due to space aliens. Maybe the space aliens are angry about not being issued driving licenses.
A police ball in Philadelphia when a police officer and his ex-girlfriend, a former police officer retired on disability, traded punches. The news article does not mention who answered the 911 call.
The CEO of the premiere American manufacturer of body armor has been arrested for spending some ten million (yep, that’s seven zeroes in all) of his company’s dollars on a party for his daughter. Other young people, posted to Iraq, will be glad to hear that.
Ten million dollars of other people’s money for his own bloated ego -- who does this guy think he is, the Archbishop of Los Angeles?
G. I. Joe is going Belgian. He will now be part of an international based in Brussels, the imperial capital of Europe, and will be fighting a Scotch arms dealer. And one can understand; every man or woman in Europe sleeps fitfully because of the ongoing fear of being attacked by Angus and his Flaming Haggis of Death.
A Japanese-owned English-language school system in Japan has collapsed, leaving hundreds of English teachers, all British subjects, stranded and moneyless. One would think that even an English teacher would have enough sense to keep a return ticket and some backup funds.
CBS reports that French Prez Sarkozy walked out of a 60 Minutes interview. The question is why he ever agreed to visit that last barricade of Roosevelt’s New Deal and risk being gummed to death by cranky old men who haven’t enjoyed a fresh idea since 1956.
And now you may fold this excellent newspaper, sit peacefully on your porch with a cup of coffee, and take comfort from the fact that competent men and women, most of them freely elected, are running the world.
California prisoners are helping fight wildfires at one dollar an hour, while FEMA employees have held a completely fake press conference in order to deceive the American people. Given their record, perhaps FEMA staffers should be the ones dressed in orange jump suits and working for a dollar an hour.
According to the BBC, many Bolivians consider a llama fetus to be sacred. Perhaps the typical resident of La Paz drives around with a llama fetus on his dashboard, or carries one in a knitted cover. Maybe Bolivians have silly religious arguments that are prefaced with “Well, my llama fetus says….”
Do Bolivian schools feature a Meet Me at the Pole With Your Llama Fetus day?
A theorist (whatever that is) from the London School of Economics predicts that the human race will split into two different species. This is old news, as there are already two kinds of human beings, those who believe there are two kinds of human beings and those who do not.
Who does a grief counselor visit when he has a grief?
According to The New York Times, Democrats in Congress are planning a shorter work-week. And some people say there is no God.
California’s state environmentalist pests are distressed about the air pollution from the fires. Smoke. It’s called smoke.
Homeland Security has pressured New York to grant driving licenses to illegal aliens. So what will New York do if illegal aliens drive without licenses? Arrest them for violating the law?
The Italian government has determined that a series of unexplained house fires is due to space aliens. Maybe the space aliens are angry about not being issued driving licenses.
A police ball in Philadelphia when a police officer and his ex-girlfriend, a former police officer retired on disability, traded punches. The news article does not mention who answered the 911 call.
The CEO of the premiere American manufacturer of body armor has been arrested for spending some ten million (yep, that’s seven zeroes in all) of his company’s dollars on a party for his daughter. Other young people, posted to Iraq, will be glad to hear that.
Ten million dollars of other people’s money for his own bloated ego -- who does this guy think he is, the Archbishop of Los Angeles?
G. I. Joe is going Belgian. He will now be part of an international based in Brussels, the imperial capital of Europe, and will be fighting a Scotch arms dealer. And one can understand; every man or woman in Europe sleeps fitfully because of the ongoing fear of being attacked by Angus and his Flaming Haggis of Death.
A Japanese-owned English-language school system in Japan has collapsed, leaving hundreds of English teachers, all British subjects, stranded and moneyless. One would think that even an English teacher would have enough sense to keep a return ticket and some backup funds.
CBS reports that French Prez Sarkozy walked out of a 60 Minutes interview. The question is why he ever agreed to visit that last barricade of Roosevelt’s New Deal and risk being gummed to death by cranky old men who haven’t enjoyed a fresh idea since 1956.
And now you may fold this excellent newspaper, sit peacefully on your porch with a cup of coffee, and take comfort from the fact that competent men and women, most of them freely elected, are running the world.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
"It looked like a war zone."
No, it didn't.
First of all, there is no such thing as a war zone. There is war, of course, and it is nasty, ugly, violent, foul, and loud.
The only thing that looks like war is war.
And there is no such thing as a war zone, as if some committee were putting up signs restricting the colors of tanks or guns or something.
To compare a burning building or a car wreck, no matter how bad these things are, with war is the worst sort of hyperbole.
First of all, there is no such thing as a war zone. There is war, of course, and it is nasty, ugly, violent, foul, and loud.
The only thing that looks like war is war.
And there is no such thing as a war zone, as if some committee were putting up signs restricting the colors of tanks or guns or something.
To compare a burning building or a car wreck, no matter how bad these things are, with war is the worst sort of hyperbole.
Chaucer and the Laboratory Tales
I call therefore a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.
- John Milton
On Wednesday nights an English literature course, taught by a wise and learned man, meets in the hydraulics lab at Angelina College’s Jasper campus. This placement is not an accident; this is because all the other rooms were already booked for classes in nursing, criminal justice, mathematics (shudder!), art, music, engineering, physics, chemistry, and other intellectual disciplines. Angelina College may never be another Oxford University (which, given the decaying intellectual climate of modern England, is probably just as well), but her graduates are grounded in both conceptual thinking and pragmatic applications of thought.
No, it’s not all Benthamitism and Utilitarianism at Angelina; a human being, before all, is far more than an economic unit. A whiff of hydraulic fluid quite enhances the study of literature, though, and literature is a reflection on and a celebration of life. The 6th century Rule of Saint Benedict requires that a monastic’s life be one of study, physical labor, and prayer, and this is a good model for anyone who wants a life beyond the dreariness of a no-hope-of-promotion job and the even drearier vapidity of passive entertainment as programmed by our would-be masters along the New York – Los Angeles axis.
Because in a small school the hard sciences and the fuzzy studies share the space, the learned English instructor must scribble on the board his by-night brilliant notes on Chaucer among the by-day trails of scientific formulae headed by the stern injunction “DO NOT ERASE.” The result is somehow quite pleasing aesthetically. As an English major might say, “Look at all the pretty number-squiggly-thingies!”
But now consider the following, part of an assignment in trouble-shooting some sort of control device for some sort of hydraulics device found in the classroom among the wires and switches and computers and machinery: “This assignment is intended to refresh your ability to program the PLC and make external connections. Remember that the 24Vdc used for the PLC inputs will not be used to power the outputs or any of the output devices.”
Oh, yeah, and some people say that iambic pentameter is hard.
Another part of the assignment reads: “If the red lamps are selected, the two lamps will alternate, one on while the other is off at the selected flash rate. The same is true of the other colors: yellow, green, and blue.”
And the art major says “Oooooh! Look at the pretty lights!”
Further: “Use your voltmeter and continuity meter to find the error. Avoid trying to locate the problem by touching the wires or by trial and error. At this point you should know what voltages to expect at various points in the circuit.”
You know, even a wheezy old English teacher can figure out that a fellow who has to be reminded not to try to identify a problem by touching live electrical wires probably belongs in the Senate and should kept away from sharp objects.
When you walk down the hallways of Angelina you will pass by the dangling skeleton in a nursing lab, math formulae in the next room, and of course the gadgetry in the dear old hydraulics lab (kinda makes you want to sing “Gaudeamus Igitur,” huh?). The eager and focused students, most of them not young at all, who are going to help make our county prosper enjoy the opportunity to observe, and thus honor, the disciplines of others, and when they someday run their own businesses or work their ways up in the large companies and in county government, their mutual respect and work ethic are going to make life better for us all.
Learning is good.
And the flashing red, green, and yellow lights sure are pretty.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Another Doping Scandal
Mack Hall
"Hello. Sniff. Boohoo. I know that my name, Winthrop Postlewaithe, is on everyone’s lips, and that millions of little boys and girls look up to me as the World Champion Turbo-Four-Way-Chess Champion and want to follow in my footsteps – Queen’s Blasto-Rook to Knight’s Nuclear-Drive-Pawn 32 ½ -- and be just like me, me, me. Sniff. Boohoo. But I stand here before you today a disgraced person. Sniff. Boohoo. I want to apologize to my kazillions of fans, to my mom and dad who raised me to be strong and unafraid in a universe not always kind to a little boy whose dreams of piloting the Starship Enemaprize to nebulae really, really, really, really, really far away and defeating asteroido-serpents with his made-in-China-and-covered-with-lead-paint GollyGeeWhizSabre (four 3A batteries sold separately) were cruelly trashed by neighborhood meanies (I’ll get you for pantsing me in my Captain Quiche space suit, Ficus Norstenwhortle; you see if I don’t!).
"Sniff. I want to apologize to the whole world, because I know everyone on the planet has been following my, my, my career (and to Kim Il Jong in North Korea, which must be a really rockin’ place, thanks for all your emails of support, dude. You rock!). I, I, I know the whole world revolves around me, me, me and my, my, my Turbo-Four-Way-Chess career, especially when I, I, I won three Sorta-Gold-Like medals and two Sorta-Silver-Like medals in the 2004 Delphic Games in Threefrogs, Louisiana, I passed every doping test there was, and I swore to the people of the world that I had never and would never take unfair advantage of my, my, my special gifts by the Vague, Nebulous, Fuzzy Something-or-Other Being-ness Thing or Whatever Mr. Glock has to go away and meditate to in some episodes of Space-Rangers-in-Tight-Bodysuits by taking unauthorized dark chocolate with more than 60% hamster-sweat.
"Sniff. Boohoo. I, I, I must tell you all how I have let you down, because of course you spend all your pathetic little lives thinking about me, me, me and being so sorry that you could not be me, me, me. I mean, like, you know, who wouldn’t want to spend every waking hour sweating and agonizing over every moved in Turbo-Four-Way-Chess (not like those loser nerds who play Three-Way-Chess) just like I, I, I do, and wanting to be the gosh-darnest-bestest player in the whole wide universe. Sniff. Boohoo. I mean, like, who wants to be a mere entrepreneur or skilled craftsman or shop owner or doctor or truck driver or any of that bourgeois stuff when you could be the galactic expression of a superior mind drooling over a four-way-turbo chessboard? I mean, like, that’s even better than running foot-races.
" I, I, I also want to apologize to the Intergalactic Truth Investigative Vapor Team, who knew that probing deep into my, my, my really deep soul to find the poison planted there by evil doping coaches (I, I, I, of course, did not know that the Gypsum Mind-Melt was being practiced on me, me, me by an operative of the Dork Side of the Farce) was much more important than searching out Klink-the-Kans who want to blow up Planet Earth.
"I, I, I want to thank my soul-shadow, Hether-Mystyeyey-Shannin-Cheyyenne-Dauwn-La’To’tisha, and all you little people out there for standing by me, me, me in my, my, my dark mid-day of my, my, my existential soul, and, like, y’know, stuff. Way to go, H-M-S-C-D-L. And now I’ll take a few questions from the media before the ITIVT take me away to a penal colony. Yes…?"
First (and only) reporter: "Who did you say you were?"
"Hello. Sniff. Boohoo. I know that my name, Winthrop Postlewaithe, is on everyone’s lips, and that millions of little boys and girls look up to me as the World Champion Turbo-Four-Way-Chess Champion and want to follow in my footsteps – Queen’s Blasto-Rook to Knight’s Nuclear-Drive-Pawn 32 ½ -- and be just like me, me, me. Sniff. Boohoo. But I stand here before you today a disgraced person. Sniff. Boohoo. I want to apologize to my kazillions of fans, to my mom and dad who raised me to be strong and unafraid in a universe not always kind to a little boy whose dreams of piloting the Starship Enemaprize to nebulae really, really, really, really, really far away and defeating asteroido-serpents with his made-in-China-and-covered-with-lead-paint GollyGeeWhizSabre (four 3A batteries sold separately) were cruelly trashed by neighborhood meanies (I’ll get you for pantsing me in my Captain Quiche space suit, Ficus Norstenwhortle; you see if I don’t!).
"Sniff. I want to apologize to the whole world, because I know everyone on the planet has been following my, my, my career (and to Kim Il Jong in North Korea, which must be a really rockin’ place, thanks for all your emails of support, dude. You rock!). I, I, I know the whole world revolves around me, me, me and my, my, my Turbo-Four-Way-Chess career, especially when I, I, I won three Sorta-Gold-Like medals and two Sorta-Silver-Like medals in the 2004 Delphic Games in Threefrogs, Louisiana, I passed every doping test there was, and I swore to the people of the world that I had never and would never take unfair advantage of my, my, my special gifts by the Vague, Nebulous, Fuzzy Something-or-Other Being-ness Thing or Whatever Mr. Glock has to go away and meditate to in some episodes of Space-Rangers-in-Tight-Bodysuits by taking unauthorized dark chocolate with more than 60% hamster-sweat.
"Sniff. Boohoo. I, I, I must tell you all how I have let you down, because of course you spend all your pathetic little lives thinking about me, me, me and being so sorry that you could not be me, me, me. I mean, like, you know, who wouldn’t want to spend every waking hour sweating and agonizing over every moved in Turbo-Four-Way-Chess (not like those loser nerds who play Three-Way-Chess) just like I, I, I do, and wanting to be the gosh-darnest-bestest player in the whole wide universe. Sniff. Boohoo. I mean, like, who wants to be a mere entrepreneur or skilled craftsman or shop owner or doctor or truck driver or any of that bourgeois stuff when you could be the galactic expression of a superior mind drooling over a four-way-turbo chessboard? I mean, like, that’s even better than running foot-races.
" I, I, I also want to apologize to the Intergalactic Truth Investigative Vapor Team, who knew that probing deep into my, my, my really deep soul to find the poison planted there by evil doping coaches (I, I, I, of course, did not know that the Gypsum Mind-Melt was being practiced on me, me, me by an operative of the Dork Side of the Farce) was much more important than searching out Klink-the-Kans who want to blow up Planet Earth.
"I, I, I want to thank my soul-shadow, Hether-Mystyeyey-Shannin-Cheyyenne-Dauwn-La’To’tisha, and all you little people out there for standing by me, me, me in my, my, my dark mid-day of my, my, my existential soul, and, like, y’know, stuff. Way to go, H-M-S-C-D-L. And now I’ll take a few questions from the media before the ITIVT take me away to a penal colony. Yes…?"
First (and only) reporter: "Who did you say you were?"
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Jesus and the Twelve Apostrophes
Recently I had occasion to visit a facility offering something called healthcare (sic). Such an event used to be called going to the doctor, and health care, as two words, was part of the phraseology of insurance forms.
In times long past, one said hello to the receptionist (probably a high school classmate), and sat in a waiting room to read a ten-year-old copy of National Geographic. After a bit a registered nurse in a crisp (forgive the cliché’, but it is apt) white uniform complete with nursing cap and school pin opened a door to say, "The doctor will see you now."
Now one says hello to the receptionist (still probably an old pal from school), who gives the bearer of a fevered brow a greasy ball-point pen and a portfolio of almost illegible forms, photocopies of photocopies of photocopies, over which to labor while the receptionist photocopies the patient’s insurance card, pharmacy card, Sam’s Club card, and driving license. After a wait in a room full of the sick staring slack-jawed at CNN on a widescreen telly, a person of indeterminate rank and skills, wearing pajamas of indeterminate color and hygiene, admits the suffering for healthcare.
I suppose the coming phrase is "The healthcare provider will healthcare you now."
Combining words and employing nouns as verbs are fashions now ("cutting edge," I believe it’s called, "educating for the 21st century"), along with the elimination of punctuation.
In school a drill team is now called a colorguard, and they aren’t guarding the colors or even carrying them; the FFA does that. The denotation of color guard is the assemblage of soldiers carrying the national and unit colors, flanked by two riflemen, and don’t even think of messin’ with those colors unless you want to die. Now color guard, jammed into colorguard, is a team of dancers who wave bright cloths on the ends of sticks. These routines are certainly entertaining, and I yield to no one in my admiration of dance from ballet to Gene Kelly to boot-scootin’ something-or-other. But a dance troupe is not a color guard; one might with equal accuracy call it small-unit action against a gun emplacement.
One also reads of the modern tendency to exile commas and apostrophes to the same outlands as the semi-colon; one who has suffered through sixth-grade grammar drills is initially tempted to stand and applaud. But before we push the poor old apostrophe into a boxcar of the Siberian Express (return ticket not an issue), let us rememberer the real purpose (not Ol’ Miz Grundy’s sadistic got’cha game) of punctuation. Consider the following line:
PATERNOSTERQVIINCOELISESTSANCTIFICETVRNOMENTVVMADVENIATREGNVMTVVMFIATVOLVNTVSTVAINTERRAETINCOELVM…
Makes no sense, right? Now let’s separate the words, allow for little letters, and add some punctuation:
Pater Noster, Qui in Coelis est, sanctificetur Nomen Tuum, adveniat regnum Tuum, fiat voluntus tua in Terra et in Coelum…
Now we’re getting somewhere. As with geometry, accept as a given that Pater Noster means Father Ours, and the rest can easily be worked out. However, even in English we would have problems with no word separation, no small letters, and no punctuation:
OURFATHERWHOARTINHEAVENHALLOWEDBETHYNAMETHYKINGDOMCOMETHYWILLBEDONEINEARTHASITISINHEAVEN…
Oh, easy enough to sort out a line or two, but can one imagine reading The Bible (and which one, anyway?), work orders, nursing notes, bills of lading, or a Louis L’Amour shoot-‘em-up printed like that?
Language changes, but that change should flow naturally with the passage of time and with the need to express new technologies. We should not scurry like mice in obedience to the chief mouse to discard the carefully worked out usages of time and reality. Punctuation and word usage are about clarity and aesthetics, not ideology.
So for now, at the end of the day, the bottom line is, when push comes to shove, in today’s society, in a heartbeat, at this point in time, when the skinny lady sings, the cutting edge of education for the 21st century means thinking outside the box 24/7 in order to define a generation along a long and winding dusty country road for the just plain common people changed our lives forever as a person met his or her fate when a hurricane was brewing and then slammed ashore in an expression of freedom of choice for women’s healthcare because the wrath of Mother Nature…(fade to a Blue Bell commercial).
In times long past, one said hello to the receptionist (probably a high school classmate), and sat in a waiting room to read a ten-year-old copy of National Geographic. After a bit a registered nurse in a crisp (forgive the cliché’, but it is apt) white uniform complete with nursing cap and school pin opened a door to say, "The doctor will see you now."
Now one says hello to the receptionist (still probably an old pal from school), who gives the bearer of a fevered brow a greasy ball-point pen and a portfolio of almost illegible forms, photocopies of photocopies of photocopies, over which to labor while the receptionist photocopies the patient’s insurance card, pharmacy card, Sam’s Club card, and driving license. After a wait in a room full of the sick staring slack-jawed at CNN on a widescreen telly, a person of indeterminate rank and skills, wearing pajamas of indeterminate color and hygiene, admits the suffering for healthcare.
I suppose the coming phrase is "The healthcare provider will healthcare you now."
Combining words and employing nouns as verbs are fashions now ("cutting edge," I believe it’s called, "educating for the 21st century"), along with the elimination of punctuation.
In school a drill team is now called a colorguard, and they aren’t guarding the colors or even carrying them; the FFA does that. The denotation of color guard is the assemblage of soldiers carrying the national and unit colors, flanked by two riflemen, and don’t even think of messin’ with those colors unless you want to die. Now color guard, jammed into colorguard, is a team of dancers who wave bright cloths on the ends of sticks. These routines are certainly entertaining, and I yield to no one in my admiration of dance from ballet to Gene Kelly to boot-scootin’ something-or-other. But a dance troupe is not a color guard; one might with equal accuracy call it small-unit action against a gun emplacement.
One also reads of the modern tendency to exile commas and apostrophes to the same outlands as the semi-colon; one who has suffered through sixth-grade grammar drills is initially tempted to stand and applaud. But before we push the poor old apostrophe into a boxcar of the Siberian Express (return ticket not an issue), let us rememberer the real purpose (not Ol’ Miz Grundy’s sadistic got’cha game) of punctuation. Consider the following line:
PATERNOSTERQVIINCOELISESTSANCTIFICETVRNOMENTVVMADVENIATREGNVMTVVMFIATVOLVNTVSTVAINTERRAETINCOELVM…
Makes no sense, right? Now let’s separate the words, allow for little letters, and add some punctuation:
Pater Noster, Qui in Coelis est, sanctificetur Nomen Tuum, adveniat regnum Tuum, fiat voluntus tua in Terra et in Coelum…
Now we’re getting somewhere. As with geometry, accept as a given that Pater Noster means Father Ours, and the rest can easily be worked out. However, even in English we would have problems with no word separation, no small letters, and no punctuation:
OURFATHERWHOARTINHEAVENHALLOWEDBETHYNAMETHYKINGDOMCOMETHYWILLBEDONEINEARTHASITISINHEAVEN…
Oh, easy enough to sort out a line or two, but can one imagine reading The Bible (and which one, anyway?), work orders, nursing notes, bills of lading, or a Louis L’Amour shoot-‘em-up printed like that?
Language changes, but that change should flow naturally with the passage of time and with the need to express new technologies. We should not scurry like mice in obedience to the chief mouse to discard the carefully worked out usages of time and reality. Punctuation and word usage are about clarity and aesthetics, not ideology.
So for now, at the end of the day, the bottom line is, when push comes to shove, in today’s society, in a heartbeat, at this point in time, when the skinny lady sings, the cutting edge of education for the 21st century means thinking outside the box 24/7 in order to define a generation along a long and winding dusty country road for the just plain common people changed our lives forever as a person met his or her fate when a hurricane was brewing and then slammed ashore in an expression of freedom of choice for women’s healthcare because the wrath of Mother Nature…(fade to a Blue Bell commercial).
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Canada Takes Charge
The Canadian dollar is worth more than the American dollar for the first time since our invasion of Canada in 1775, which of course we Americans won.
The Canadian dollar is called The Looney because it bears a picture of a loon. The reason why there is a picture of a loon on the Canadian dollar is a state secret wrapped carefully in the skin of a cute widdle baby harp seal and hidden deep in an abandoned gold mine outside Dawson and guarded by Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
Canadians are celebrating the power of their dollar by crossing the border and buying made-in-China stuff in America instead of buying made-in-China stuff in Canada. Because our funny-money is no longer quite up to the mark, goods are cheaper here in Canada’s Back Yard. A gallon of gasoline in Canada, for instance, costs almost five dollars, and that’s five sturdy Canadian dollars, not our flimsy Yank dollars, and so all those cars bearing patriotic maple leaf bumper stickers nip discreetly across The World’s Friendliest Border to buy cheap American petrol.
Being an underdeveloped country could be interesting. This winter Canadians will flee the ice and cold for the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico. We locals might find jobs wearing funny hats and selling overpriced drinks with umbrellas stuck in them to haughty tourists who will write postcards home about us quaint, colorful Americans in our native peasant garb:
“Dear Neville and Beryl, Having the most amusing time among the natives down here, eh. Charming towel boy named Bubba who was once a great logger or something among his tribe until we flooded the American market with our softwood, eh. Given the exchange rate, I and some of the lads at the fishery are thinking of getting together and buying Beaumont as a lark, eh. What they call a dollar is so charming, but of course it’s not real money, eh. See you on Dominion Day, eh. Your pals, Pierre et Marie”
Our illegal aliens could grow to be quite the snobs too: “’Ey, Yankee-boy, you are a bunch of losers. We’re going to Canada for better welfare and to learn how to say ‘Go, Maple Leafs! Eh.’”
Canadian dudes will swagger down the streets of our once-great cities and steal our girlfriends away by flashing their wallets full of Looneys and Tooneys. We will complain that the loud, pushy Canadians are overpaid, oversexed, and over here.
Canadians will patronize (or patronise) us by assuring us that our decaying Republic is so last week’s news, and that in the twenty-first century being a part of the British Empire is the coming thing.
Our children will have to go to special night schools to learn how to spell colour, armour, and eh if they want to be part of the world economy.
Little boys will discard G.I. Joe in favor (or favour) of RCMP Smedley.
American nationalists will gather in secret to whisper about the nefarious Canadian plot to invade us and steal our sand.
Manly men will gather around the telly on Sunday afternoon to watch soccer as the NFL is relegated to sandlots and supermarket openings.
The White House will feature a Tim Horton’s in the lobby, and the President will eagerly claim to be the Prime Minister’s best pal.
This Moosehead’s For You.
Cindy Sheehan and Al Sharpton will picket outside Parliament in Ottawa screaming “Canada Out of Canada!”
Canadian movies will feature the streets of Los Angeles pretending to be the streets of Toronto, partly because of the exchange rate but mostly because the streets of Los Angeles are safer.
Hummer? Ha! Now it’s all Bombardier.
And the final humiliation resulting from Canada’s economic and cultural dominance of North America: Newfoundlanders will be telling Amerifie jokes.
The Canadian dollar is called The Looney because it bears a picture of a loon. The reason why there is a picture of a loon on the Canadian dollar is a state secret wrapped carefully in the skin of a cute widdle baby harp seal and hidden deep in an abandoned gold mine outside Dawson and guarded by Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
Canadians are celebrating the power of their dollar by crossing the border and buying made-in-China stuff in America instead of buying made-in-China stuff in Canada. Because our funny-money is no longer quite up to the mark, goods are cheaper here in Canada’s Back Yard. A gallon of gasoline in Canada, for instance, costs almost five dollars, and that’s five sturdy Canadian dollars, not our flimsy Yank dollars, and so all those cars bearing patriotic maple leaf bumper stickers nip discreetly across The World’s Friendliest Border to buy cheap American petrol.
Being an underdeveloped country could be interesting. This winter Canadians will flee the ice and cold for the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico. We locals might find jobs wearing funny hats and selling overpriced drinks with umbrellas stuck in them to haughty tourists who will write postcards home about us quaint, colorful Americans in our native peasant garb:
“Dear Neville and Beryl, Having the most amusing time among the natives down here, eh. Charming towel boy named Bubba who was once a great logger or something among his tribe until we flooded the American market with our softwood, eh. Given the exchange rate, I and some of the lads at the fishery are thinking of getting together and buying Beaumont as a lark, eh. What they call a dollar is so charming, but of course it’s not real money, eh. See you on Dominion Day, eh. Your pals, Pierre et Marie”
Our illegal aliens could grow to be quite the snobs too: “’Ey, Yankee-boy, you are a bunch of losers. We’re going to Canada for better welfare and to learn how to say ‘Go, Maple Leafs! Eh.’”
Canadian dudes will swagger down the streets of our once-great cities and steal our girlfriends away by flashing their wallets full of Looneys and Tooneys. We will complain that the loud, pushy Canadians are overpaid, oversexed, and over here.
Canadians will patronize (or patronise) us by assuring us that our decaying Republic is so last week’s news, and that in the twenty-first century being a part of the British Empire is the coming thing.
Our children will have to go to special night schools to learn how to spell colour, armour, and eh if they want to be part of the world economy.
Little boys will discard G.I. Joe in favor (or favour) of RCMP Smedley.
American nationalists will gather in secret to whisper about the nefarious Canadian plot to invade us and steal our sand.
Manly men will gather around the telly on Sunday afternoon to watch soccer as the NFL is relegated to sandlots and supermarket openings.
The White House will feature a Tim Horton’s in the lobby, and the President will eagerly claim to be the Prime Minister’s best pal.
This Moosehead’s For You.
Cindy Sheehan and Al Sharpton will picket outside Parliament in Ottawa screaming “Canada Out of Canada!”
Canadian movies will feature the streets of Los Angeles pretending to be the streets of Toronto, partly because of the exchange rate but mostly because the streets of Los Angeles are safer.
Hummer? Ha! Now it’s all Bombardier.
And the final humiliation resulting from Canada’s economic and cultural dominance of North America: Newfoundlanders will be telling Amerifie jokes.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Anticipating November
Mist and Meteors
Little Leonids, falling from the stars
Space dust, they say, sailing from far away
Why have you come to us, and why so far?
So tell me now -- what do you have to say?
The stars are dimming as the mist rolls in
A curtain between the heavens and me
A metaphor, perhaps, suggesting sin,
Separating what is from what might be.
And yet you use even the fog to light
The very air as you fall and die
A glowing, healing, mysterious sight
That closes the gap between earth and sky
I don't know -- are you a message from God?
In this strange night -- that's not so very odd.
Madonna, the Yenta Ouijazilla
Poor Israel – surrounded by genocidal neighbors who stay up late polishing their North Korean nukes and listening to The Voices. And now, perhaps a worse threat, a Kabbalah convention in Tel Aviv featuring Madonna.
Greek Orthodox everywhere breathe a grateful sigh of relief that Madonna’s parents did not name her Theotokos.
Whatever the Kabbalah is – and to ask for a definition is to suffer a smothering tribble-drop of New Age cliches’ – it has become the newest fashion among rich people without underwear. Scientology is, like, soooo last week.
And, really, one can understand – wearing a red string on one’s wrist is so much more understated than lugging an e-meter around.
And what’s with the red string, named Red String? Well, you buy it for some twenty-six dollars or so, and it has, like, y’know, seven knots in it, and, like, stuff, and it wards off the Evil Eye.
Whew! Gotta get me one! I don’t know of a day in my life when I haven’t been menaced by evil eyes glaring at me from my toothbrush and my toaster, and now my salvation is here, in a red string! You can buy your own Red String at Kabbalah.com, along with incense, candles, posters – golly, the sixties are back!
Other followers of Kabbalism are said to include Britney Spears, David and Victoria Beckham, Roseanne Barr, Donna Karan, Lindsey Lohan, Sandra Bernhard, Demi Moore, and Ashton Kutcher, all the greats.
Last week Madonna, who has taken the name of Esther, was a guest of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who, according to the Associated Press, gave her a copy of the Old Testament. Note to AP: That’s not what they call it in Israel. In return, Madonna gave Mr. Peres a copy of a Kabbalist text, The Book of Splendor, inscribed "To Shimon Peres, the man I admire and love, Madonna." Now that, not dictators with nuclear weapons, will have the man waking up at 0200 dripping sweat and screaming in fear.
Why is it that the rich and famous seem genetically unable to sit modestly and humbly in a pew, donate to the soup kitchen, help serve coffee after divine services, and just shut up?
Because duty is not nearly as thrilling as being part of an in-group: all the corpse-littered films and the secret -– so secret that they have their own web sites – societies puttering about with secret Egyptian / Babylonian / Chaldean / Crusader books, candles, magic healing water, sacred vessels (stamped “Made in Taiwan” on the bottom), codes (Da Vinci and otherwise), arcane ceremonies featuring robes and wands and stuff, Grail legends, Templar legends, crystals, rocks, ouija boards, seances, tarot cards – it’s all old news. Have we learned nothing from Chaucer’s Pardoner with his pig bones and handkerchiefs? Or from pompously sad Yeats with his table-thumping seances and his orange magic robes?
Poor Madonna. If she really wants to encounter Jewish mysticism she could not do better than to visit an ordinary synagogue on a Friday evening. She could sit next to a woman whose husband has died and whose children are grown and gone. She could ask this woman, a real Esther, “What is the meaning of life?” And perhaps Esther would smile with the wisdom of genuine suffering, and whisper “Shhhhh,” and point to the Torah.
Greek Orthodox everywhere breathe a grateful sigh of relief that Madonna’s parents did not name her Theotokos.
Whatever the Kabbalah is – and to ask for a definition is to suffer a smothering tribble-drop of New Age cliches’ – it has become the newest fashion among rich people without underwear. Scientology is, like, soooo last week.
And, really, one can understand – wearing a red string on one’s wrist is so much more understated than lugging an e-meter around.
And what’s with the red string, named Red String? Well, you buy it for some twenty-six dollars or so, and it has, like, y’know, seven knots in it, and, like, stuff, and it wards off the Evil Eye.
Whew! Gotta get me one! I don’t know of a day in my life when I haven’t been menaced by evil eyes glaring at me from my toothbrush and my toaster, and now my salvation is here, in a red string! You can buy your own Red String at Kabbalah.com, along with incense, candles, posters – golly, the sixties are back!
Other followers of Kabbalism are said to include Britney Spears, David and Victoria Beckham, Roseanne Barr, Donna Karan, Lindsey Lohan, Sandra Bernhard, Demi Moore, and Ashton Kutcher, all the greats.
Last week Madonna, who has taken the name of Esther, was a guest of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who, according to the Associated Press, gave her a copy of the Old Testament. Note to AP: That’s not what they call it in Israel. In return, Madonna gave Mr. Peres a copy of a Kabbalist text, The Book of Splendor, inscribed "To Shimon Peres, the man I admire and love, Madonna." Now that, not dictators with nuclear weapons, will have the man waking up at 0200 dripping sweat and screaming in fear.
Why is it that the rich and famous seem genetically unable to sit modestly and humbly in a pew, donate to the soup kitchen, help serve coffee after divine services, and just shut up?
Because duty is not nearly as thrilling as being part of an in-group: all the corpse-littered films and the secret -– so secret that they have their own web sites – societies puttering about with secret Egyptian / Babylonian / Chaldean / Crusader books, candles, magic healing water, sacred vessels (stamped “Made in Taiwan” on the bottom), codes (Da Vinci and otherwise), arcane ceremonies featuring robes and wands and stuff, Grail legends, Templar legends, crystals, rocks, ouija boards, seances, tarot cards – it’s all old news. Have we learned nothing from Chaucer’s Pardoner with his pig bones and handkerchiefs? Or from pompously sad Yeats with his table-thumping seances and his orange magic robes?
Poor Madonna. If she really wants to encounter Jewish mysticism she could not do better than to visit an ordinary synagogue on a Friday evening. She could sit next to a woman whose husband has died and whose children are grown and gone. She could ask this woman, a real Esther, “What is the meaning of life?” And perhaps Esther would smile with the wisdom of genuine suffering, and whisper “Shhhhh,” and point to the Torah.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
But What About New Orleans?
Hey, people -- stop cleaning up now, go back into the house (if you still have one), and write a big ol' check to send to New Orleans. Thousands of career victims are depending on you. (fade out from a weedy, sepia-colored railway track with a harmonica background)
Friday, September 14, 2007
Hurricane Humberto
Al Caldwell and KLVI always get life right. In crises and on ordinary mornings the discerning listener will roll the little red line to AM 560 for news, wheezy jokes, and INTELLIGENT conversation.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
A Workman
Mack Hall
Flavius: Thou art a cobbler, art thou?
Second Commoner: Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl. I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but with awl. I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes. When they are in great danger I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork.
-- Julius Caesar
Last week I had occasion to visit a shoemaker to have a pair of shoes re-soled and re-heeled, a practice common even a generation ago but now almost unheard of.
Shoes now come from slave factories in China, and when worn out are thrown away (“recycled”), as are redundant Chinese workers, not mended. China is now progressing in robotics to the point where one’s new leather shoes are perhaps not made by Prisoner Chang but of Prisoner Chang.
Most shoes look like cancerous mushrooms on steroids, but people are convinced by advertising that these blobs are cool because they are worn by some millionaire while he kills dogs or something. Looking for shoes that take a polish is now an adventure.
My cobbler is a smart young man who can discourse expertly on the merits of digital vs. film as media for recording images as well as on leather. He looked at my shoes and immediately knew the brand, the place of manufacture, and the eccentricities of the stitchery unique to the company who made the shoe.
His shop, marked appropriately by a wooden silhouette of a boot hanging from a chain, smelled of leather, wood, oils, and tools, all very much like The City Shoe Shop of happy memory.
And can you say “City Shoe Shop” over and over, really fast, without saying something naughty?
Nowhere was there any evidence of a computer in the cobbler’s shop; indeed, the only evidence of technology was the electric light. The tools were all hand tools, honest wood and iron, and the work bench was an archaeological site, worn and scratched and battered, among the litter of which history could be studied. And isn’t that the way art should be!
Here were no pixellated penguins, no electronic sermons yapping about my ideological failures, no preachments about why I should walk barefoot instead of killing a cow for shoes, no fashionable bottles of water, no body piercings, but rather that increasingly rare man, a real artisan pursuing his craft with his hands and his brain.
I am not nearly so gifted, but I can manage a bit of the rough carpentry I learned on the farm. Recently I felt the need to build some bookshelves. I have most of the tools I need for such small projects, including the hammer my father gave me for my 8th grade graduation for a summer of building fences. I was hoping for something more entertaining -– a car would have been nice -- but in the event my Tru-Temper Rocket has served me honorably for more than forty years.
Whenever I shop for tools I look for that Made In The USA stamp and can almost always find it. Although most manufacturers are now offshore, some of their older products are still trickling out of warehouses, and they are worth the hunt. An American-made hammer, saw, or screwdriver enjoys a heft, a balance, a solidity that you just won’t see or feel or weigh in some shiny thing stamped out of scrap metal by Prisoner Chang before he was harvested for his lungs.
We don’t need another filmmaker, another cartoonist, another nasal thirty-something abusing a guitar, another book on existentialism, another advertiser. We just don’t need ‘em. But a man who can make you some shoes or plumb your house or build cabinets or make the electricity go – in him you've met a true artist.
Flavius: Thou art a cobbler, art thou?
Second Commoner: Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl. I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but with awl. I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes. When they are in great danger I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork.
-- Julius Caesar
Last week I had occasion to visit a shoemaker to have a pair of shoes re-soled and re-heeled, a practice common even a generation ago but now almost unheard of.
Shoes now come from slave factories in China, and when worn out are thrown away (“recycled”), as are redundant Chinese workers, not mended. China is now progressing in robotics to the point where one’s new leather shoes are perhaps not made by Prisoner Chang but of Prisoner Chang.
Most shoes look like cancerous mushrooms on steroids, but people are convinced by advertising that these blobs are cool because they are worn by some millionaire while he kills dogs or something. Looking for shoes that take a polish is now an adventure.
My cobbler is a smart young man who can discourse expertly on the merits of digital vs. film as media for recording images as well as on leather. He looked at my shoes and immediately knew the brand, the place of manufacture, and the eccentricities of the stitchery unique to the company who made the shoe.
His shop, marked appropriately by a wooden silhouette of a boot hanging from a chain, smelled of leather, wood, oils, and tools, all very much like The City Shoe Shop of happy memory.
And can you say “City Shoe Shop” over and over, really fast, without saying something naughty?
Nowhere was there any evidence of a computer in the cobbler’s shop; indeed, the only evidence of technology was the electric light. The tools were all hand tools, honest wood and iron, and the work bench was an archaeological site, worn and scratched and battered, among the litter of which history could be studied. And isn’t that the way art should be!
Here were no pixellated penguins, no electronic sermons yapping about my ideological failures, no preachments about why I should walk barefoot instead of killing a cow for shoes, no fashionable bottles of water, no body piercings, but rather that increasingly rare man, a real artisan pursuing his craft with his hands and his brain.
I am not nearly so gifted, but I can manage a bit of the rough carpentry I learned on the farm. Recently I felt the need to build some bookshelves. I have most of the tools I need for such small projects, including the hammer my father gave me for my 8th grade graduation for a summer of building fences. I was hoping for something more entertaining -– a car would have been nice -- but in the event my Tru-Temper Rocket has served me honorably for more than forty years.
Whenever I shop for tools I look for that Made In The USA stamp and can almost always find it. Although most manufacturers are now offshore, some of their older products are still trickling out of warehouses, and they are worth the hunt. An American-made hammer, saw, or screwdriver enjoys a heft, a balance, a solidity that you just won’t see or feel or weigh in some shiny thing stamped out of scrap metal by Prisoner Chang before he was harvested for his lungs.
We don’t need another filmmaker, another cartoonist, another nasal thirty-something abusing a guitar, another book on existentialism, another advertiser. We just don’t need ‘em. But a man who can make you some shoes or plumb your house or build cabinets or make the electricity go – in him you've met a true artist.
Archbishop of Los Angeles Evicts Elderly Nuns
Thanks to Gerald Augustinus at The Cafeteria is Closed for this heads-up from The Los Angeles Times:
L.A. Archdiocese plans to sell the Santa Barbara site to help pay its priest abuse settlement. The nuns will likely have to leave the city where they've served the poor.
By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 7, 2007
SANTA BARBARA -- For 43 years, Sister Angela Escalera has lived and often worked out of her order's small convent on this city's east side, helping the area's many poor and undocumented residents with translation, counseling and other needs.
Now retired and partly disabled at 69, the nun thought she would live out her days here, in the community where she is still an active volunteer and in the dwelling that was built for the order in 1952.
Nuns EvictedBut she and the other two nuns at the Sisters of Bethany house recently received word that their convent, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, will be sold to help pay the bill for the church's recent, multimillion-dollar priest sex abuse settlement.
The nuns have four months to move out, according to a letter from the archdiocese. The notice, which was dated June 28 but not received until the end of August, asked the women to vacate the property no later than Dec. 31 -- and noted that an earlier departure "would be acceptable as well." Signed by Msgr. Royale M. Vadakin, the archdiocese's vicar general, the letter offers the nuns no recourse but thanks them for their understanding and cooperation during a difficult time.
Oh, yes, "The Spirit of Vatican II" strikes again.
L.A. Archdiocese plans to sell the Santa Barbara site to help pay its priest abuse settlement. The nuns will likely have to leave the city where they've served the poor.
By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 7, 2007
SANTA BARBARA -- For 43 years, Sister Angela Escalera has lived and often worked out of her order's small convent on this city's east side, helping the area's many poor and undocumented residents with translation, counseling and other needs.
Now retired and partly disabled at 69, the nun thought she would live out her days here, in the community where she is still an active volunteer and in the dwelling that was built for the order in 1952.
Nuns EvictedBut she and the other two nuns at the Sisters of Bethany house recently received word that their convent, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, will be sold to help pay the bill for the church's recent, multimillion-dollar priest sex abuse settlement.
The nuns have four months to move out, according to a letter from the archdiocese. The notice, which was dated June 28 but not received until the end of August, asked the women to vacate the property no later than Dec. 31 -- and noted that an earlier departure "would be acceptable as well." Signed by Msgr. Royale M. Vadakin, the archdiocese's vicar general, the letter offers the nuns no recourse but thanks them for their understanding and cooperation during a difficult time.
Oh, yes, "The Spirit of Vatican II" strikes again.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
September
Mack Hall
The hot, humid air hangs heavily, old,
On unnaturally green late summer days
Afternoon clouds billow up, blues and greys,
And thunder in impatience, high and cold
But here below the earth is exhausted
From growth and green, and from sunlight and heat
It wishes for sleep beneath winter sleet
As the air is cleaned and fields are frosted
I wish for autumn, earth’s time for yawning
As it prepares for bed. The morning deer
Along a distant line of trees seem near,
Nibbling gently in the misty dawning
Perhaps they, too, sense a change in the air
And feel the days of heavy summer pass
Into thin winter. Heavy summer grass
Fattens their bellies and thickens their hair
My morning coffee doesn’t satisfy;
I drink half a cup, toss the rest away,
Drift to work on a hot, late summer day,
And watch the far north for geese in the sky
The hot, humid air hangs heavily, old,
On unnaturally green late summer days
Afternoon clouds billow up, blues and greys,
And thunder in impatience, high and cold
But here below the earth is exhausted
From growth and green, and from sunlight and heat
It wishes for sleep beneath winter sleet
As the air is cleaned and fields are frosted
I wish for autumn, earth’s time for yawning
As it prepares for bed. The morning deer
Along a distant line of trees seem near,
Nibbling gently in the misty dawning
Perhaps they, too, sense a change in the air
And feel the days of heavy summer pass
Into thin winter. Heavy summer grass
Fattens their bellies and thickens their hair
My morning coffee doesn’t satisfy;
I drink half a cup, toss the rest away,
Drift to work on a hot, late summer day,
And watch the far north for geese in the sky
Sidonian Dido
Mack Hall
Sidonian Dido, Africa's queen --
Dreamer on the Mediterranean shore:
Why is it that your truth has not been seen?
In singing ancient songs there is far more
Than tall tales treacherous Trojans tend to tell,
Crude calumnies by Teucerian bores
Your faithful friends followed when your star fell
In your Phoenician homeland far away
In Africa you built anew, built well
Your city between the desert and bay --
Carthage, homeland of courtesy and grace
Where even Juno deigned to dwell, some say
Sidonian Dido, your ancient race
Brought to the desert the lute and the lyre
Made moonlit music in that dream-scaped place
Sidonian Dido, Africa's queen!
The black, bitter smoke of your funeral pyre
Cannot obscure the brilliance of your fire
Cannot win honour for Dardanian liars
Didonia Dido, a dreamer's queen --
Sing to us who love you on African nights
When the deep desert dreams in limpid light
Whene eyes and hearts and moon are full and bright
Sidonian Dido, Africa's queen --
Dreamer on the Mediterranean shore:
Why is it that your truth has not been seen?
In singing ancient songs there is far more
Than tall tales treacherous Trojans tend to tell,
Crude calumnies by Teucerian bores
Your faithful friends followed when your star fell
In your Phoenician homeland far away
In Africa you built anew, built well
Your city between the desert and bay --
Carthage, homeland of courtesy and grace
Where even Juno deigned to dwell, some say
Sidonian Dido, your ancient race
Brought to the desert the lute and the lyre
Made moonlit music in that dream-scaped place
Sidonian Dido, Africa's queen!
The black, bitter smoke of your funeral pyre
Cannot obscure the brilliance of your fire
Cannot win honour for Dardanian liars
Didonia Dido, a dreamer's queen --
Sing to us who love you on African nights
When the deep desert dreams in limpid light
Whene eyes and hearts and moon are full and bright
Monday, September 3, 2007
A B17 Over Jasper, Texas
I took this shot from ground level during Jasper's annual air show in April of 2006. And I confess that I touched -- gently -- an RAF Spitfire, the most beautiful plane ever.
Down From the Door Where it Began
The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet –
And whither then? I cannot say.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Our former random collection of stem cells left for university on Sunday, alternating between giggles and tears as she loaded her little Volkswagen with flutes, clothes, books, tennis racket, computer, makeup, pillows, blankies, and all the other impedimenta of the late-adolescent female beginning her journey on her chosen road. This has been a week of departures, the annual late-August migration of high school graduates out of America’s fast-disappearing little towns and into the groaning centers of population for college or careers. In ones and twos they have flown away like hummingbirds in November, all the little rug-rats who squealed at birthday parties and sleepovers, and scampered through the house with the merry dachshunds. They long ago packed away the Barbies and took up books, musical instruments, microscopes, and computers instead. Some are off to great universities, some to the Marines, and some to the wonderful world of entry-level jobs: “Ya want fries with that?’
I woke up early on Sunday morning, and did what all fathers do for their college-bound kids: I washed Sarah’s car. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do. We had all gone to Mass the night before, because all journeys properly begin and end at the Altar. However, this left us with maybe too much time before Sarah joined The Other Sarah for their two-car departure. So I mowed the lawn. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Eldon came over in the early afternoon; both his girls have left for A & M, so in our great sorrow we broke out a couple of cigars, sat under the fan on the back porch (now more commonly known as a patio), and felt old. Finally, around two, I violated my own no-cars-on-the-lawn rule and backed Sarah’s little Bug to the front door, where I followed orders and helped Sarah load her gear to her specifications while the usually merry dachshunds watched sadly. They didn’t know what was going on, but they somehow knew that their little world was about to change. And then there was nothing left to do. Sunlight fell on the green grass and the blue Volkswagen while the sky to the north darkened with an approaching thunderstorm. Hugs all around, and then Sarah drove away down the lane and the dusty East Texas road -- not to a movie or pizza with her buds, and not for an afternoon or an evening, but far away and forever.
Now the house is very quiet, and the babble of the television and the rattle of the washer can’t disguise the emptiness of a house where a child used to live. Sarah’s awards-heavy letter jacket hangs in her closet in its plastic bag from the cleaners. Last week it was her resume’; now it’s just an artifact of the past, stored away with plastic boxes of toys and games. On her bed reside the stuffed animals she cuddled at night and when she was sick. Her books are stacked on their accustomed shelves: the worn Little House books she read over and over, Diary of a Young Girl, My Cat Spit Magee, 501 Spanish Verbs, Agatha Christie mysteries, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, every Sweet Valley High book ever churned out on spec, Finland, Jane Austen.
One of the best things I ever did for Sarah was to ban daytime television during her childhood summers. Thus, she climbed her favorite tree with books, cats, and her cap pistol, and spent many warm afternoon hours in her green-lit, bee-humming world, hidden away from adults, reading. This was sometimes alarming, but she got through it without any broken bones.
They will wait patiently for Sarah: cats and dachshunds and stuffed toys and books and her climbing tree. I’ve even saved her cap pistol in case she should someday feel the need to be Queen of the West again. No kids run in and out of the house, and the ‘phone doesn’t ring a dozen times or so nightly -- The Divine Sarah’s Answering Service is definitely out of business. The stereo doesn’t shake the walls. I can watch The History Channel all I want. Heck, maybe I am The History Channel.
Fare thee well, Sarah Elizabeth Maria Goretti Hall, daughter of Cromwellian Roundheads and French refugees, of American Indians and Yankees and good Confederates, of soldiers and sailors and farmers and railroad men and laborers, of women who crossed oceans in wooden ships and gave birth in wagons along forest trails. Thank you for the magical gift of your childhood. I hope you get to see the sunset at midnight in Finland again, and climb on a bronze lion in Trafalgar Square. I hope you play your flute in Italy, visit castles in Germany, ski in Austria, and do whatever it is they do in Australia. I hope your friends are always like those great kids you grew up with. May your little Blue Bug carry you to great adventures, and may it follow its nose home when you are ready to come back to the door where a couple of little dachshunds and an old dad sit waiting for you.
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet –
And whither then? I cannot say.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Our former random collection of stem cells left for university on Sunday, alternating between giggles and tears as she loaded her little Volkswagen with flutes, clothes, books, tennis racket, computer, makeup, pillows, blankies, and all the other impedimenta of the late-adolescent female beginning her journey on her chosen road. This has been a week of departures, the annual late-August migration of high school graduates out of America’s fast-disappearing little towns and into the groaning centers of population for college or careers. In ones and twos they have flown away like hummingbirds in November, all the little rug-rats who squealed at birthday parties and sleepovers, and scampered through the house with the merry dachshunds. They long ago packed away the Barbies and took up books, musical instruments, microscopes, and computers instead. Some are off to great universities, some to the Marines, and some to the wonderful world of entry-level jobs: “Ya want fries with that?’
I woke up early on Sunday morning, and did what all fathers do for their college-bound kids: I washed Sarah’s car. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do. We had all gone to Mass the night before, because all journeys properly begin and end at the Altar. However, this left us with maybe too much time before Sarah joined The Other Sarah for their two-car departure. So I mowed the lawn. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Eldon came over in the early afternoon; both his girls have left for A & M, so in our great sorrow we broke out a couple of cigars, sat under the fan on the back porch (now more commonly known as a patio), and felt old. Finally, around two, I violated my own no-cars-on-the-lawn rule and backed Sarah’s little Bug to the front door, where I followed orders and helped Sarah load her gear to her specifications while the usually merry dachshunds watched sadly. They didn’t know what was going on, but they somehow knew that their little world was about to change. And then there was nothing left to do. Sunlight fell on the green grass and the blue Volkswagen while the sky to the north darkened with an approaching thunderstorm. Hugs all around, and then Sarah drove away down the lane and the dusty East Texas road -- not to a movie or pizza with her buds, and not for an afternoon or an evening, but far away and forever.
Now the house is very quiet, and the babble of the television and the rattle of the washer can’t disguise the emptiness of a house where a child used to live. Sarah’s awards-heavy letter jacket hangs in her closet in its plastic bag from the cleaners. Last week it was her resume’; now it’s just an artifact of the past, stored away with plastic boxes of toys and games. On her bed reside the stuffed animals she cuddled at night and when she was sick. Her books are stacked on their accustomed shelves: the worn Little House books she read over and over, Diary of a Young Girl, My Cat Spit Magee, 501 Spanish Verbs, Agatha Christie mysteries, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, every Sweet Valley High book ever churned out on spec, Finland, Jane Austen.
One of the best things I ever did for Sarah was to ban daytime television during her childhood summers. Thus, she climbed her favorite tree with books, cats, and her cap pistol, and spent many warm afternoon hours in her green-lit, bee-humming world, hidden away from adults, reading. This was sometimes alarming, but she got through it without any broken bones.
They will wait patiently for Sarah: cats and dachshunds and stuffed toys and books and her climbing tree. I’ve even saved her cap pistol in case she should someday feel the need to be Queen of the West again. No kids run in and out of the house, and the ‘phone doesn’t ring a dozen times or so nightly -- The Divine Sarah’s Answering Service is definitely out of business. The stereo doesn’t shake the walls. I can watch The History Channel all I want. Heck, maybe I am The History Channel.
Fare thee well, Sarah Elizabeth Maria Goretti Hall, daughter of Cromwellian Roundheads and French refugees, of American Indians and Yankees and good Confederates, of soldiers and sailors and farmers and railroad men and laborers, of women who crossed oceans in wooden ships and gave birth in wagons along forest trails. Thank you for the magical gift of your childhood. I hope you get to see the sunset at midnight in Finland again, and climb on a bronze lion in Trafalgar Square. I hope you play your flute in Italy, visit castles in Germany, ski in Austria, and do whatever it is they do in Australia. I hope your friends are always like those great kids you grew up with. May your little Blue Bug carry you to great adventures, and may it follow its nose home when you are ready to come back to the door where a couple of little dachshunds and an old dad sit waiting for you.
Down From the Door Where it Began
The road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet –
And whither then? I cannot say.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Our former random collection of stem cells left for university on Sunday, alternating between giggles and tears as she loaded her little Volkswagen with flutes, clothes, books, tennis racket, computer, makeup, pillows, blankies, and all the other impedimenta of the late-adolescent female beginning her journey on her chosen road. This has been a week of departures, the annual late-August migration of high school graduates out of America’s fast-disappearing little towns and into the groaning centers of population for college or careers. In ones and twos they have flown away like hummingbirds in November, all the little rug-rats who squealed at birthday parties and sleepovers, and scampered through the house with the merry dachshunds. They long ago packed away the Barbies and took up books, musical instruments, microscopes, and computers instead. Some are off to great universities, some to the Marines, and some to the wonderful world of entry-level jobs: “Ya want fries with that?’
I woke up early on Sunday morning, and did what all fathers do for their college-bound kids: I washed Sarah’s car. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do. We had all gone to Mass the night before, because all journeys properly begin and end at the Altar. However, this left us with maybe too much time before Sarah joined The Other Sarah for their two-car departure. So I mowed the lawn. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Eldon came over in the early afternoon; both his girls have left for A & M, so in our great sorrow we broke out a couple of cigars, sat under the fan on the back porch (now more commonly known as a patio), and felt old. Finally, around two, I violated my own no-cars-on-the-lawn rule and backed Sarah’s little Bug to the front door, where I followed orders and helped Sarah load her gear to her specifications while the usually merry dachshunds watched sadly. They didn’t know what was going on, but they somehow knew that their little world was about to change. And then there was nothing left to do. Sunlight fell on the green grass and the blue Volkswagen while the sky to the north darkened with an approaching thunderstorm. Hugs all around, and then Sarah drove away down the lane and the dusty East Texas road -- not to a movie or pizza with her buds, and not for an afternoon or an evening, but far away and forever.
Now the house is very quiet, and the babble of the television and the rattle of the washer can’t disguise the emptiness of a house where a child used to live. Sarah’s awards-heavy letter jacket hangs in her closet in its plastic bag from the cleaners. Last week it was her resume’; now it’s just an artifact of the past, stored away with plastic boxes of toys and games. On her bed reside the stuffed animals she cuddled at night and when she was sick. Her books are stacked on their accustomed shelves: the worn Little House books she read over and over, Diary of a Young Girl, My Cat Spit Magee, 501 Spanish Verbs, Agatha Christie mysteries, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, every Sweet Valley High book ever churned out on spec, Finland, Jane Austen.
One of the best things I ever did for Sarah was to ban daytime television during her childhood summers. Thus, she climbed her favorite tree with books, cats, and her cap pistol, and spent many warm afternoon hours in her green-lit, bee-humming world, hidden away from adults, reading. This was sometimes alarming, but she got through it without any broken bones.
They will wait patiently for Sarah: cats and dachshunds and stuffed toys and books and her climbing tree. I’ve even saved her cap pistol in case she should someday feel the need to be Queen of the West again. No kids run in and out of the house, and the ‘phone doesn’t ring a dozen times or so nightly -- The Divine Sarah’s Answering Service is definitely out of business. The stereo doesn’t shake the walls. I can watch The History Channel all I want. Heck, maybe I am The History Channel.
Fare thee well, Sarah Elizabeth Maria Goretti Hall, daughter of Cromwellian Roundheads and French refugees, of American Indians and Yankees and good Confederates, of soldiers and sailors and farmers and railroad men and laborers, of women who crossed oceans in wooden ships and gave birth in wagons along forest trails. Thank you for the magical gift of your childhood. I hope you get to see the sunset at midnight in Finland again, and climb on a bronze lion in Trafalgar Square. I hope you play your flute in Italy, visit castles in Germany, ski in Austria, and do whatever it is they do in Australia. I hope your friends are always like those great kids you grew up with. May your little Blue Bug carry you to great adventures, and may it follow its nose home when you are ready to come back to the door where a couple of little dachshunds and an old dad sit waiting for you.
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet –
And whither then? I cannot say.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Our former random collection of stem cells left for university on Sunday, alternating between giggles and tears as she loaded her little Volkswagen with flutes, clothes, books, tennis racket, computer, makeup, pillows, blankies, and all the other impedimenta of the late-adolescent female beginning her journey on her chosen road. This has been a week of departures, the annual late-August migration of high school graduates out of America’s fast-disappearing little towns and into the groaning centers of population for college or careers. In ones and twos they have flown away like hummingbirds in November, all the little rug-rats who squealed at birthday parties and sleepovers, and scampered through the house with the merry dachshunds. They long ago packed away the Barbies and took up books, musical instruments, microscopes, and computers instead. Some are off to great universities, some to the Marines, and some to the wonderful world of entry-level jobs: “Ya want fries with that?’
I woke up early on Sunday morning, and did what all fathers do for their college-bound kids: I washed Sarah’s car. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do. We had all gone to Mass the night before, because all journeys properly begin and end at the Altar. However, this left us with maybe too much time before Sarah joined The Other Sarah for their two-car departure. So I mowed the lawn. It didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Eldon came over in the early afternoon; both his girls have left for A & M, so in our great sorrow we broke out a couple of cigars, sat under the fan on the back porch (now more commonly known as a patio), and felt old. Finally, around two, I violated my own no-cars-on-the-lawn rule and backed Sarah’s little Bug to the front door, where I followed orders and helped Sarah load her gear to her specifications while the usually merry dachshunds watched sadly. They didn’t know what was going on, but they somehow knew that their little world was about to change. And then there was nothing left to do. Sunlight fell on the green grass and the blue Volkswagen while the sky to the north darkened with an approaching thunderstorm. Hugs all around, and then Sarah drove away down the lane and the dusty East Texas road -- not to a movie or pizza with her buds, and not for an afternoon or an evening, but far away and forever.
Now the house is very quiet, and the babble of the television and the rattle of the washer can’t disguise the emptiness of a house where a child used to live. Sarah’s awards-heavy letter jacket hangs in her closet in its plastic bag from the cleaners. Last week it was her resume’; now it’s just an artifact of the past, stored away with plastic boxes of toys and games. On her bed reside the stuffed animals she cuddled at night and when she was sick. Her books are stacked on their accustomed shelves: the worn Little House books she read over and over, Diary of a Young Girl, My Cat Spit Magee, 501 Spanish Verbs, Agatha Christie mysteries, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, every Sweet Valley High book ever churned out on spec, Finland, Jane Austen.
One of the best things I ever did for Sarah was to ban daytime television during her childhood summers. Thus, she climbed her favorite tree with books, cats, and her cap pistol, and spent many warm afternoon hours in her green-lit, bee-humming world, hidden away from adults, reading. This was sometimes alarming, but she got through it without any broken bones.
They will wait patiently for Sarah: cats and dachshunds and stuffed toys and books and her climbing tree. I’ve even saved her cap pistol in case she should someday feel the need to be Queen of the West again. No kids run in and out of the house, and the ‘phone doesn’t ring a dozen times or so nightly -- The Divine Sarah’s Answering Service is definitely out of business. The stereo doesn’t shake the walls. I can watch The History Channel all I want. Heck, maybe I am The History Channel.
Fare thee well, Sarah Elizabeth Maria Goretti Hall, daughter of Cromwellian Roundheads and French refugees, of American Indians and Yankees and good Confederates, of soldiers and sailors and farmers and railroad men and laborers, of women who crossed oceans in wooden ships and gave birth in wagons along forest trails. Thank you for the magical gift of your childhood. I hope you get to see the sunset at midnight in Finland again, and climb on a bronze lion in Trafalgar Square. I hope you play your flute in Italy, visit castles in Germany, ski in Austria, and do whatever it is they do in Australia. I hope your friends are always like those great kids you grew up with. May your little Blue Bug carry you to great adventures, and may it follow its nose home when you are ready to come back to the door where a couple of little dachshunds and an old dad sit waiting for you.
My Hero!
I would not wear images of other people on my clothing even if I weren't my own greatest hero.
The Photocopier Squeals
The office photocopier can be a marvelous source of wisdom as well as of trivia. Sometimes one clears the scanner glass and learns what joys and revelations a fellowship / church / ministry / outreach / under the inspired leadership of Reverend Doctor Bishop Brother So-and-So has planned for the next Sunday.
Our lesson for today, however, is taken from a science quiz, the original of which was left in The Machine that knows all. Here are some of the many connected bits of knowledge our tenth-graders are expected to master systematically:
What substance releases hydroxide ions in solution?
What category of elements makes up Group 2 in the Periodic Table?
What are single-celled prokaryotes, organisms that lack a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles?
Define abiotic factors.
What is the biological mass in an ecosystem called?
What is a form of asexual reproduction in which the genetic material of the cell is copies and then the cell simply divides in two, forming two identical daughter cells?
What chemical substance slows or prevents the growth of bacterial microorganisms?
How many thanks do we owe Sister Thus-and-Such for playing the piano…wait…wrong document…
I conclude by making my own modest contribution: What is the predominant meter in Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places?”
A. Iambic pentameter
B. Trochee
C. Anapest
D. Budapest
For us parents the most important question in September is this: do our children have a set place and time for study? Is their need to work to improve themselves respected by all in the household? Do they have a quiet corner and good sturdy table at which to work? A desk lamp? Pens and pencils and calculator and paper? A few basic reference books, beginning with an ordinary dictionary?
After all, life is not entirely about drunken movie starlets named after geographical features.
Our lesson for today, however, is taken from a science quiz, the original of which was left in The Machine that knows all. Here are some of the many connected bits of knowledge our tenth-graders are expected to master systematically:
What substance releases hydroxide ions in solution?
What category of elements makes up Group 2 in the Periodic Table?
What are single-celled prokaryotes, organisms that lack a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles?
Define abiotic factors.
What is the biological mass in an ecosystem called?
What is a form of asexual reproduction in which the genetic material of the cell is copies and then the cell simply divides in two, forming two identical daughter cells?
What chemical substance slows or prevents the growth of bacterial microorganisms?
How many thanks do we owe Sister Thus-and-Such for playing the piano…wait…wrong document…
I conclude by making my own modest contribution: What is the predominant meter in Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places?”
A. Iambic pentameter
B. Trochee
C. Anapest
D. Budapest
For us parents the most important question in September is this: do our children have a set place and time for study? Is their need to work to improve themselves respected by all in the household? Do they have a quiet corner and good sturdy table at which to work? A desk lamp? Pens and pencils and calculator and paper? A few basic reference books, beginning with an ordinary dictionary?
After all, life is not entirely about drunken movie starlets named after geographical features.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Secret National Press Guide For Reporting Hurricanes
1.Remember: hurricane reporting is always about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans.
2.If you simply can't avoid mentioning the fact that a hurricane destroyed large parts of Mexico, Texas, western Louisiana, or Mississippi, skip over it lightly and get back to talking about existential angst in New Orleans.
3.Showing pictures of the dead in Jamaica is acceptable only if you make a New Orleans connection
4.Employ lots and lots of hyperbole and personification: “Mother Nature's Fateful Wrath of Hell-Storm Dean Bearing Down on Doomed Island Leaving a Swath of Destruction in His Wake” is good. Also remember that storms are always poising, bearing down, aiming, plowing, blasting, raking, tracking, thrashing, lashing, slashing, slamming, churning, and cutting swaths (whatever a swath is). Be sure to talk about people bearing brunts, which they never otherwise bear (and just what is a brunt, anyway, and why must it be borne?). Oh, yeah – say that every bit of litter looks like a war zone. War zone sounds cool, though no one who has ever been in a war says it.
5.Never, never, never publish a photograph of a lineman working to restore electricity, of a fireman rescuing folks from floods, or of a police officer patrolling in 100+ heat; instead, show a picture of some guy squatting in the gutter and playing a saxophone or harmonica. Use an artsy sepia filter for this.
6.Always imply that evil President Bush is responsible for any scene of sorrow. After all, we never had hurricanes until the bad man seized power through the machinations of his evil elves. And while blaming global warming for this mess we don't need to mention that President Clinton did not sign the Kyoto Protocols.
7.When interviewing His Honor Mayor Negin of New Orleans, never reveal that the interview is in the safety of his getaway home near Dallas.
8.FEMA trailers are all about the preservatives (found in all new wood products, all new furniture, and all new carpets, but we don't mention that, okay?). Never suggest that the residents might want to show a little gratitude for having a place to live and might want to clean up after themselves.
9.Never interview positive individuals who are repairing and cleaning and solving problems on their own. Find the professional victims; they have the time to indulge you, they're much better actors, and they enjoy posturing for the cameras.
10. Always find some whining twit with a baby but with no diapers, no baby food, and no formula to complain loudly that “(President) Bush shoulda been better prepared for this! This is ridiculous! This is ridiculous!” Never suggest that, with almost two weeks of warnings she might have made some effort herself.
11. Fill in dead air time with the usual babble about global warming. Don't go with science or history here, go with populist mythologies. Global warming is real (ignore the fact that in this hemisphere it's summer, and don't even think about the people freezing to death in Argentina), and is caused by the evil middle classes owning their own homes and driving cars and working for a living.
12. If you can't avoid showing those dramatic water rescues in Oklahoma, don't forget the New Orleans tie-in.
13. Never, ever speak the R*** word. There was no hurricane in East Texas / western Louisiana which took out an area the size of England.
14. When you assign some idiot to stand in the wind and rain of a hurricane, remind him to say things like “This must be a little bit of what Hurricane Katrina was like.”
15. My fellow journalists, our reporting on The End of The World,Y2K, and Hurricane Katrina (genuflect as this point) was too, too restrained. Let's go out there and go with YooToob and MeMeMeSpace journalistic passion with the hurricanes! Darn the facts! Grab those cliches' and stereotypes!
16. After you read this, make three copies on your Blueberry and eat the original while kneeling before your Dan Rather ikon.
2.If you simply can't avoid mentioning the fact that a hurricane destroyed large parts of Mexico, Texas, western Louisiana, or Mississippi, skip over it lightly and get back to talking about existential angst in New Orleans.
3.Showing pictures of the dead in Jamaica is acceptable only if you make a New Orleans connection
4.Employ lots and lots of hyperbole and personification: “Mother Nature's Fateful Wrath of Hell-Storm Dean Bearing Down on Doomed Island Leaving a Swath of Destruction in His Wake” is good. Also remember that storms are always poising, bearing down, aiming, plowing, blasting, raking, tracking, thrashing, lashing, slashing, slamming, churning, and cutting swaths (whatever a swath is). Be sure to talk about people bearing brunts, which they never otherwise bear (and just what is a brunt, anyway, and why must it be borne?). Oh, yeah – say that every bit of litter looks like a war zone. War zone sounds cool, though no one who has ever been in a war says it.
5.Never, never, never publish a photograph of a lineman working to restore electricity, of a fireman rescuing folks from floods, or of a police officer patrolling in 100+ heat; instead, show a picture of some guy squatting in the gutter and playing a saxophone or harmonica. Use an artsy sepia filter for this.
6.Always imply that evil President Bush is responsible for any scene of sorrow. After all, we never had hurricanes until the bad man seized power through the machinations of his evil elves. And while blaming global warming for this mess we don't need to mention that President Clinton did not sign the Kyoto Protocols.
7.When interviewing His Honor Mayor Negin of New Orleans, never reveal that the interview is in the safety of his getaway home near Dallas.
8.FEMA trailers are all about the preservatives (found in all new wood products, all new furniture, and all new carpets, but we don't mention that, okay?). Never suggest that the residents might want to show a little gratitude for having a place to live and might want to clean up after themselves.
9.Never interview positive individuals who are repairing and cleaning and solving problems on their own. Find the professional victims; they have the time to indulge you, they're much better actors, and they enjoy posturing for the cameras.
10. Always find some whining twit with a baby but with no diapers, no baby food, and no formula to complain loudly that “(President) Bush shoulda been better prepared for this! This is ridiculous! This is ridiculous!” Never suggest that, with almost two weeks of warnings she might have made some effort herself.
11. Fill in dead air time with the usual babble about global warming. Don't go with science or history here, go with populist mythologies. Global warming is real (ignore the fact that in this hemisphere it's summer, and don't even think about the people freezing to death in Argentina), and is caused by the evil middle classes owning their own homes and driving cars and working for a living.
12. If you can't avoid showing those dramatic water rescues in Oklahoma, don't forget the New Orleans tie-in.
13. Never, ever speak the R*** word. There was no hurricane in East Texas / western Louisiana which took out an area the size of England.
14. When you assign some idiot to stand in the wind and rain of a hurricane, remind him to say things like “This must be a little bit of what Hurricane Katrina was like.”
15. My fellow journalists, our reporting on The End of The World,Y2K, and Hurricane Katrina (genuflect as this point) was too, too restrained. Let's go out there and go with YooToob and MeMeMeSpace journalistic passion with the hurricanes! Darn the facts! Grab those cliches' and stereotypes!
16. After you read this, make three copies on your Blueberry and eat the original while kneeling before your Dan Rather ikon.
Friday, August 17, 2007
If Men Gave Baby Showers
If Men Gave Baby Showers
A friend is soon to have a baby, and your 'umble scrivener was invited to the shower. The father-to-be was trapped in the gifting thing, but the uncle-to-be and y.'u.s. escaped to the kitchen to nibble early from the buffet and to exchange existential angst about an alien milieu involving women, reproduction issues, and Winnie-the-Pooh.
One of the great guy-questions, never fully resolved, is this: if a man attends a baby shower, can he still legally watch John Wayne movies? Is he still certified to operate a riding lawnmower? Does he have to surrender his fishing license to the authorities?
The aunt-to-be kept a careful record of the proceedings so that thank-you cards could be sent later (“Thank-you cards?” men ask. “What are thank-you cards?”), the grandmother-to-be took lots of snapshots, everyone overdosed on sugar-sodden cake while talking about diets, the mother-to-be glowed, and a merry time was enjoyed by all (even the initially nervous men).
What if men gave baby showers? What if guys gathered around the father-to-be and gave him stuff for the baby? Here are some possibilities for totally guy baby shower gifts:
My Li'l Shotgun
Fisher-Price Deer Camp Playset
Samuel L. Jackson Bedtime Reader
Chuck Norris Diapers – they don't take no **** off no one
Baby's First Deer Rifle
My Very Own Junior Chainsaw
John Wayne Drawl 'n' Spell
Combat Booties
Dangling Saddamn Hussein Crib Toy
Just-Like-Dad's TV Remote Control
Winnie-the-Pooh as Mr. T
Fort Apache crib
Massey-Ferguson stroller
John Deere baby bottles
Remington diaper pins
Pat-the-Timberwolf activity book
Fisher-Price B2 Bomber with nuclear capability
Dukes of Hazzard car seat
Rambo fully automatic cup and plate with real smoke
RMS Titanic bathtub toy with optional iceberg and screaming action figures
Finally, let us not forget a box of manly thank-you cards themed in your choice of Randolph Scott, Errol Flynn, Laurence Fishburne, or other action heroes:
Deer (haha) Bubba,
Thank you for the Vikings-Invade-England-and-Slaughter-the-Villagers Action Playset you done give my little Cheyenne-Dakota. His momma and I can hardly wait to see him swinging the cute little double-headed axe when he learns to chase the cat around the house.
Your friend,
Bubba-Gene
Hey, this guy baby-shower thing could work!
A friend is soon to have a baby, and your 'umble scrivener was invited to the shower. The father-to-be was trapped in the gifting thing, but the uncle-to-be and y.'u.s. escaped to the kitchen to nibble early from the buffet and to exchange existential angst about an alien milieu involving women, reproduction issues, and Winnie-the-Pooh.
One of the great guy-questions, never fully resolved, is this: if a man attends a baby shower, can he still legally watch John Wayne movies? Is he still certified to operate a riding lawnmower? Does he have to surrender his fishing license to the authorities?
The aunt-to-be kept a careful record of the proceedings so that thank-you cards could be sent later (“Thank-you cards?” men ask. “What are thank-you cards?”), the grandmother-to-be took lots of snapshots, everyone overdosed on sugar-sodden cake while talking about diets, the mother-to-be glowed, and a merry time was enjoyed by all (even the initially nervous men).
What if men gave baby showers? What if guys gathered around the father-to-be and gave him stuff for the baby? Here are some possibilities for totally guy baby shower gifts:
My Li'l Shotgun
Fisher-Price Deer Camp Playset
Samuel L. Jackson Bedtime Reader
Chuck Norris Diapers – they don't take no **** off no one
Baby's First Deer Rifle
My Very Own Junior Chainsaw
John Wayne Drawl 'n' Spell
Combat Booties
Dangling Saddamn Hussein Crib Toy
Just-Like-Dad's TV Remote Control
Winnie-the-Pooh as Mr. T
Fort Apache crib
Massey-Ferguson stroller
John Deere baby bottles
Remington diaper pins
Pat-the-Timberwolf activity book
Fisher-Price B2 Bomber with nuclear capability
Dukes of Hazzard car seat
Rambo fully automatic cup and plate with real smoke
RMS Titanic bathtub toy with optional iceberg and screaming action figures
Finally, let us not forget a box of manly thank-you cards themed in your choice of Randolph Scott, Errol Flynn, Laurence Fishburne, or other action heroes:
Deer (haha) Bubba,
Thank you for the Vikings-Invade-England-and-Slaughter-the-Villagers Action Playset you done give my little Cheyenne-Dakota. His momma and I can hardly wait to see him swinging the cute little double-headed axe when he learns to chase the cat around the house.
Your friend,
Bubba-Gene
Hey, this guy baby-shower thing could work!
The Beast 666 Computer
The Beast 666 Computer
In the 1970s there were many whispered rumors about The Beast 666 Computer that Satan was supposedly constructing in Belgium. Our social security numbers were the Mark of the Beast (I used to date her, by the way), and these would be fed into the 666 Computer and then fluoridated or something, and then Satan would rule the world, mwahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!
The founders of this rumor went on to invent Y2K, and urged us all to buy drums of water and sacks of dried peas because when the End Times come and Captain Kirk beams us up to his space ship as the planet explodes we’ll all need drums of water and sacks of dried peas.
We now know that the whole bit about Satan and his magic laptop was always quite impossible, since within minutes of its completion the computer would have whimsically shut down and refused to do anything but light up.
Satan would have had to call out a Volkswagen-driving 30-something with thick glasses at $60 an hour to sneer at Satan’s outdated hard-drive (“this is sooooooooo last week”) and his dial-up connection.
Satan would also have learned that all the dossiers saved on his previous (hardly old) computer in Micro-Blop X-PMS are not compatible with the newer-than-new Micro-Snort Z-Xtreem bundled into his new computer, and would have to sacrifice his first-born, Vladimir Putin, to the computer gods to pay for a patch, which would take three hours to work through each time he wanted to look at, say, his MeMeMeSpace downloads.
Imagine, if you will, buying a new car, and after driving it ten minutes it breaks down, and must be rebuilt at great expense.
Imagine, if you will, buying a new book shelf, and as you transfer those favorite volumes from the old shelf to the new shelf your books simply disappear.
Imagine, if you will, transferring file folders from an old cabinet to a new, and they simply won’t fit into either file cabinet.
Imagine, if you will, writing a letter to a friend, and the old pen won’t work and the new pen comes with a lengthy instruction manual and then won’t work anyway.
Imagine, if you will, writing out your week’s work and meeting schedule in your daily planner, and then at a critical moment all your writing simply evaporates.
Imagine, if you will, mailing a letter to a friend, and finding that the postal service no longer accepts envelopes but instead requires a complex new packaging and you must spend a day at a seminar learning this new method.
Yes, I bought a new computer this week.
Satan’s in the computer business, all right.
In the 1970s there were many whispered rumors about The Beast 666 Computer that Satan was supposedly constructing in Belgium. Our social security numbers were the Mark of the Beast (I used to date her, by the way), and these would be fed into the 666 Computer and then fluoridated or something, and then Satan would rule the world, mwahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!
The founders of this rumor went on to invent Y2K, and urged us all to buy drums of water and sacks of dried peas because when the End Times come and Captain Kirk beams us up to his space ship as the planet explodes we’ll all need drums of water and sacks of dried peas.
We now know that the whole bit about Satan and his magic laptop was always quite impossible, since within minutes of its completion the computer would have whimsically shut down and refused to do anything but light up.
Satan would have had to call out a Volkswagen-driving 30-something with thick glasses at $60 an hour to sneer at Satan’s outdated hard-drive (“this is sooooooooo last week”) and his dial-up connection.
Satan would also have learned that all the dossiers saved on his previous (hardly old) computer in Micro-Blop X-PMS are not compatible with the newer-than-new Micro-Snort Z-Xtreem bundled into his new computer, and would have to sacrifice his first-born, Vladimir Putin, to the computer gods to pay for a patch, which would take three hours to work through each time he wanted to look at, say, his MeMeMeSpace downloads.
Imagine, if you will, buying a new car, and after driving it ten minutes it breaks down, and must be rebuilt at great expense.
Imagine, if you will, buying a new book shelf, and as you transfer those favorite volumes from the old shelf to the new shelf your books simply disappear.
Imagine, if you will, transferring file folders from an old cabinet to a new, and they simply won’t fit into either file cabinet.
Imagine, if you will, writing a letter to a friend, and the old pen won’t work and the new pen comes with a lengthy instruction manual and then won’t work anyway.
Imagine, if you will, writing out your week’s work and meeting schedule in your daily planner, and then at a critical moment all your writing simply evaporates.
Imagine, if you will, mailing a letter to a friend, and finding that the postal service no longer accepts envelopes but instead requires a complex new packaging and you must spend a day at a seminar learning this new method.
Yes, I bought a new computer this week.
Satan’s in the computer business, all right.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Mottled Water
"(T)hey found a dozen or so bottles bearing the labels of various mineral waters -- Evian, St. Galmier, Vichy, Malvern -- all empty. It was Mr. Youkoumian's practice to replenish them, when required, from the foetid well at the back of the house." -- Evelyn Waugh
Saturday, July 21, 2007
White Boys With Guitars
One is reasonably sure that the world would be a much happier place if whiny white boys with guitars were banned to the shadows.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
One of my favs: Mack Hall
Meet Me at the Pole -- And Bring a Goat
Last Thursday morning the United State Senate was opened with a prayer by one Rajad Zed of Nevada, said to be a Hindu chaplain. The prayer, briefly interrupted by three folks who were hustled off by the cops, went like this:
"We meditate on the transcendental glory of the deity supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May he stimulate and illuminate our minds."
To which one does not respond with an "amen" but rather with a "huh?"
Look, I don't know anything about Hinduism, okay? But I don't think this guy does either.
Is this really a prayer, or a left-over Jethro-meets-some-hippies skit from The Beverly Hillbillies? I mean, "inside the life of the sky?" Does the sky have a life? Says who? Why?
One imagines our august senators assembled pondering this assemblage of words preparatory to dealing soberly and judiciously with the nation's business. But one imagines in vain. Only two senators were present, Harry Reid of the Hindu chaplain's home state, and James Inhofe of Oklahoma.
Three protestors, two senators, one Hindu holy person, and an otherwise empty, echoing chamber -- our United States Senate in wartime. Sleep secure, America.
In the USA religion enjoys minimal relevance; even the disparate bands of Christians ("I am of Apollos!" and "I follow Paul!") can't agree on what Christianity means. One group of Christians shows up at the funerals of our war dead to gloat, and last spring another group of Christians felt free to violate that commandment about bearing false witness by altering a Beaumont school document. In my little town some fellow with an Old Testament beard and store-bought clothes occasionally stands on the street corner with signs proclaiming (with his Christian bull-horn) whom God hates, and employs vulgarities in doing so.
To the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, God, even when severe, does not address any of His children as f(oxtrot)s.
Our senate is becoming fashionably panthetistic. What next? The Fellowship of Pagan Athletes?
"Hey, Bubba, see ya at The Pole tomorrow morning to sacrifice a goat to Zeus, okay?"
Maybe the Voodoo Club can get together to turn a math teacher into a zombie.
Not that anyone could tell the difference.
A cult could toss a cheerleader into a volcano to appease the football gods ("Gee, Tiffany, show a little team spirit, okay...?"), the Future Mithraians of America might bathe in the blood of a bull (after a fund-raiser selling little made-in-China chocolate bulls door-to-door), the chess-club worshippers of Ahura-Mazda could stare into a light bulb, and the existentialists could deny that anything exists at all, only perceptions.
The X-treeme Suicide Bomber Youth Group. Get the kids off the streets and into these cute matching club vests. As someone said, children blow up so fast.
The Men's Downtown Bhagavad-Gita Meeting. Se habla Espanol.
A Gideons chicken-for-sacrifice in every hotel room.
After the, um, Senate prayer last Thursday, Senator Reid assured the Hindu chaplain that he keeps a statue of Gandhi on his desk.
Whoa! I'll bet that makes Al-Qaeda re-think stuff, eh?
Gandhi. Hmmmmph. I would feel just a whole lot better if the Senate Majority Leader displayed a statue of John Wayne instead. Or at least Bob Newhart.
Meet me at the pole. And bring a senator.
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