Sunday, November 28, 2010
Religious Vocations
In all of East Texas there are perhaps ten men who have not been called to the Christian ministry, a record matched only in certain counties in Arkansas and Mississippi.
Black Friday -- News from the Front
Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Black Friday – News from the Front
Once upon a time holidays did not feature casualty lists or after-action reports. The most common complaint about Christmas (even then a priest or minister speaking of Advent was truly a vox clamantis in deserto) was that it was no longer Christmas at all but rather a secularized shopping racket, more a product of advertising rather than of God’s mercy.
Christmas shopping was accomplished among crowds, but the crowds were happy ones and the Christmas lights in the shops and along the streets brightened the early winter fully as well as the treats and sweets and happy anticipation of largesse under the tree on Christmas morning. Although we all tend to view our childhood days through the misty eyes of flawed remembrance, I really do not think that our parents or grandparents ever considered the possibility of being shot, stabbed, bombed, or trampled to death while Christmas shopping.
For those few eccentrics who attended divine services on Christmas the worst fear was that the pastor’s sermon connecting an obscure verse in Leviticus with the Christmas narrative in St. Luke and finally summing up with something by Oliver Goldsmith would yawn on for too long. The possibility of being shot, stabbed, or bombed in church was as unthinkable as being shot, stabbed, or bombed at the toy train display in Sears.
In those debit card-innocent times the Friday after Thanksgiving was, well, Friday, with leftovers on the table and football games on the black-and-white for the old folks (geezers in their 30s), and real football in the leafy front yard for the kids. Now the day is cursed as Black Friday, the first day of something miscalled The Christmas Season (a reminder: the four weeks before the Feast of the Nativity is Advent; Christmas is the twelve days from the Feast of the Nativity to the Feast of the Epiphany), and aimless souls without families, values, a cultural heritage, or any sense line up obediently in the night-time not to worship the Child in a manger but to worship the acquisition of more possessions.
When the doors to the Temples of Stuff are opened – or broken down by the wild-eye faithful armed with credit and curses – on Unholy Friday the primitive urge to sacrifice one’s very self for shiny beads and plastic boxes that light up and make noise results in threats, violence, and even death.
In 1836 the federal forces under Santa Anna raised a red flag from San Fernando Church to tell the rebels in the Alamo that there would be no prisoners; I suppose now Santa Anna would send the same cruel message with a flag advertising 30% off.
Anne of Green Gables was delighted in her one Christmas gift, a new dress. She was also surprised; her foster parents were Presbyterians of the old school and did not keep Christmas. Indeed, Anne had little time to oooh and ahhh over her gift because she had to hurry to school on Christmas day. A 21st century Anne might backhand someone at the sales on Christmas afternoon.
Christian martyrs still suffer torture with hymns on their lips; should they instead sing “Shiny stuff, plastic junk, little boxes that light up and make noises, shoes made in slave-labor camps, divine big-screens, parking-lot robberies, shoplifting, cutting someone else’s trees, carrying pistols to the sales – all for You, O Holy Transient Stuff, all for You…?”
When Mr. Pickwick took the stagecoach to visit friends for Christmas, he carried with him, as C. S. Lewis reminds us, a codfish (BIG codfish; the driver had trouble finding space for it) for his hosts, not masses of discounted debris and certainly not a bomb.
I speak not to disprove (as Marc Antony might say) material goods; I like material goods: toys for the children, Christmas trees (and presents thereunder with my name on them!), Christmas dinner, overdosing on Christmas candy, coffee with family and friends in the wonderful peace in the afternoon – these are all very good.
Most people like Christmas, both the observant and the secular parts, but Christmas is not properly kept when casualty lists now seem as common as Christmas cards.
-30-
Mhall46184@aol.com
Black Friday – News from the Front
Once upon a time holidays did not feature casualty lists or after-action reports. The most common complaint about Christmas (even then a priest or minister speaking of Advent was truly a vox clamantis in deserto) was that it was no longer Christmas at all but rather a secularized shopping racket, more a product of advertising rather than of God’s mercy.
Christmas shopping was accomplished among crowds, but the crowds were happy ones and the Christmas lights in the shops and along the streets brightened the early winter fully as well as the treats and sweets and happy anticipation of largesse under the tree on Christmas morning. Although we all tend to view our childhood days through the misty eyes of flawed remembrance, I really do not think that our parents or grandparents ever considered the possibility of being shot, stabbed, bombed, or trampled to death while Christmas shopping.
For those few eccentrics who attended divine services on Christmas the worst fear was that the pastor’s sermon connecting an obscure verse in Leviticus with the Christmas narrative in St. Luke and finally summing up with something by Oliver Goldsmith would yawn on for too long. The possibility of being shot, stabbed, or bombed in church was as unthinkable as being shot, stabbed, or bombed at the toy train display in Sears.
In those debit card-innocent times the Friday after Thanksgiving was, well, Friday, with leftovers on the table and football games on the black-and-white for the old folks (geezers in their 30s), and real football in the leafy front yard for the kids. Now the day is cursed as Black Friday, the first day of something miscalled The Christmas Season (a reminder: the four weeks before the Feast of the Nativity is Advent; Christmas is the twelve days from the Feast of the Nativity to the Feast of the Epiphany), and aimless souls without families, values, a cultural heritage, or any sense line up obediently in the night-time not to worship the Child in a manger but to worship the acquisition of more possessions.
When the doors to the Temples of Stuff are opened – or broken down by the wild-eye faithful armed with credit and curses – on Unholy Friday the primitive urge to sacrifice one’s very self for shiny beads and plastic boxes that light up and make noise results in threats, violence, and even death.
In 1836 the federal forces under Santa Anna raised a red flag from San Fernando Church to tell the rebels in the Alamo that there would be no prisoners; I suppose now Santa Anna would send the same cruel message with a flag advertising 30% off.
Anne of Green Gables was delighted in her one Christmas gift, a new dress. She was also surprised; her foster parents were Presbyterians of the old school and did not keep Christmas. Indeed, Anne had little time to oooh and ahhh over her gift because she had to hurry to school on Christmas day. A 21st century Anne might backhand someone at the sales on Christmas afternoon.
Christian martyrs still suffer torture with hymns on their lips; should they instead sing “Shiny stuff, plastic junk, little boxes that light up and make noises, shoes made in slave-labor camps, divine big-screens, parking-lot robberies, shoplifting, cutting someone else’s trees, carrying pistols to the sales – all for You, O Holy Transient Stuff, all for You…?”
When Mr. Pickwick took the stagecoach to visit friends for Christmas, he carried with him, as C. S. Lewis reminds us, a codfish (BIG codfish; the driver had trouble finding space for it) for his hosts, not masses of discounted debris and certainly not a bomb.
I speak not to disprove (as Marc Antony might say) material goods; I like material goods: toys for the children, Christmas trees (and presents thereunder with my name on them!), Christmas dinner, overdosing on Christmas candy, coffee with family and friends in the wonderful peace in the afternoon – these are all very good.
Most people like Christmas, both the observant and the secular parts, but Christmas is not properly kept when casualty lists now seem as common as Christmas cards.
-30-
Thursday, November 25, 2010
The Infallibility of Catholic Bloggers
Not even the most ego-driven Bishop of Rome in the Church's 2,000 year history ever claimed the all-encompassing infallibility of a too-common sort of more-Catholic-than-thou blogger. The Bishop of Rome's infallibility is sternly limited to matters of faith; the common, carping, cranky Catholic Keyboard Commando claims infallibility and even omniscience in faith, morals, sports, politics, war, cinema, art, literature, education, and journalism, and even in how sorry a job everyone else is doing in raising their children.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The Heartbreak of Superfluous Jails
Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Heartbreak of Superfluous Jails
Beaumont, Texas has an unused jail sitting in the middle of downtown, and no one seems quite sure what to do with it. An old jail cluttering up the place is a problem many of us share, but here are a few possible solutions just in time for the holidays:
Retirement home for TSA employees. Retired police officers are often allowed to keep their service weapons; perhaps TSA employees could face their golden years with their wands and rubber gloves from the good old days. Yes, sir, they’ll sure have some stories for their grandchildren.
Rent it to film studios for prison movies: “Caged Taxpayer Heat,” “Texas Cheerleader Murder-Moms in Chains,” “Texas Hacksaw Massacre,” “Escape from Beaumontraz,” and “Revenge of the Chess Nerds in Cell Block B” are a few titles for consideration.
Lease it out as the Jefferson County Bar and Grill. The bar would feature its patented martini, Shaken in Stir, and the grill would be located in an old interrogation room and specialize in Stool Pigeon en Brochette.
Sell it to B.I.S.D. for use as classrooms.
Convert the old jail to condominiums as the ultimate gated community.
Democratic Party headquarters.
Sell it to the Chinese government with no questions asked. Ignore those screams and gunshots in the darkness, folks. Oh, wait, that’s a typical night in Beaumont anyway.
A private prison for incarcerating whoever invented television reality shows.
A series of downscale boutiques for chains, leather goods, piercings, tattoos, and Nancy Drew books.
The Haunted Hoosegow for Halloween.
The new Motel He(ck).
An alternative daycare for those special occasions when little Timmy has not lived up to his full potential as a lifestyle accessory: “Don’t scream, Timmy; Mummy needs her hair and nails done at LaPretense Chez Elegancee’ Day Spa. I don’t care if you’re only three; it’s not all about you, darling, and the police made such a fuss when I leashed you to the front porch on my last mother’s day out. Yesterday.”
By-the-hour recording studio rentals for an authentic background to “Don’t Fence Me In,” “In the Tijuana Jail,” “Tom Dooley,” and other traditional folk songs about incarceration.
A geology museum called Jailhouse Rock.
A veterans’ home. Don’t boo, that’s about how the federal government treats veterans anyway.
A retro ambience-laden restaurant called The Greeneyed Handcuffery – bologna sandwiches on plain white bread slapped onto metal trays by sullen fellows with weeping tattoos at only $50 per guest. For another $10 you can have your picture taken wearing an orange jumpsuit.
B.E.T.T.E.R. and B.E.S.T. could stage grudge-match wrestling with Ford King Ranch pickup trucks as the prizes.
Finally, the old Jefferson County jail could be converted into a factory for making – wait for it – CELL ‘phones.
-30-
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Heartbreak of Superfluous Jails
Beaumont, Texas has an unused jail sitting in the middle of downtown, and no one seems quite sure what to do with it. An old jail cluttering up the place is a problem many of us share, but here are a few possible solutions just in time for the holidays:
Retirement home for TSA employees. Retired police officers are often allowed to keep their service weapons; perhaps TSA employees could face their golden years with their wands and rubber gloves from the good old days. Yes, sir, they’ll sure have some stories for their grandchildren.
Rent it to film studios for prison movies: “Caged Taxpayer Heat,” “Texas Cheerleader Murder-Moms in Chains,” “Texas Hacksaw Massacre,” “Escape from Beaumontraz,” and “Revenge of the Chess Nerds in Cell Block B” are a few titles for consideration.
Lease it out as the Jefferson County Bar and Grill. The bar would feature its patented martini, Shaken in Stir, and the grill would be located in an old interrogation room and specialize in Stool Pigeon en Brochette.
Sell it to B.I.S.D. for use as classrooms.
Convert the old jail to condominiums as the ultimate gated community.
Democratic Party headquarters.
Sell it to the Chinese government with no questions asked. Ignore those screams and gunshots in the darkness, folks. Oh, wait, that’s a typical night in Beaumont anyway.
A private prison for incarcerating whoever invented television reality shows.
A series of downscale boutiques for chains, leather goods, piercings, tattoos, and Nancy Drew books.
The Haunted Hoosegow for Halloween.
The new Motel He(ck).
An alternative daycare for those special occasions when little Timmy has not lived up to his full potential as a lifestyle accessory: “Don’t scream, Timmy; Mummy needs her hair and nails done at LaPretense Chez Elegancee’ Day Spa. I don’t care if you’re only three; it’s not all about you, darling, and the police made such a fuss when I leashed you to the front porch on my last mother’s day out. Yesterday.”
By-the-hour recording studio rentals for an authentic background to “Don’t Fence Me In,” “In the Tijuana Jail,” “Tom Dooley,” and other traditional folk songs about incarceration.
A geology museum called Jailhouse Rock.
A veterans’ home. Don’t boo, that’s about how the federal government treats veterans anyway.
A retro ambience-laden restaurant called The Greeneyed Handcuffery – bologna sandwiches on plain white bread slapped onto metal trays by sullen fellows with weeping tattoos at only $50 per guest. For another $10 you can have your picture taken wearing an orange jumpsuit.
B.E.T.T.E.R. and B.E.S.T. could stage grudge-match wrestling with Ford King Ranch pickup trucks as the prizes.
Finally, the old Jefferson County jail could be converted into a factory for making – wait for it – CELL ‘phones.
-30-
"The Vatican says..."
Any statement beginning with "The Vatican says..." is almost surely a thumping lie. The Vatican is a city-state; it doesn't say anything.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
The Government in Your Underwear
Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Government in Your Underwear
Suppose that you were in World War II. Or perhaps in Korea, Lebanon, Viet-Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or some bleak air base along the Arctic circle, or hazarding yourself in a patrol plane or aboard a destroyer between here and Cuba during one of Kruschev and Castro’s giddier moments. Or suppose that you are an ordinary working American – and you surely are – who goes off to work most days. You pay your taxes, rake your leaves, and try to save enough to take the rug-rats to Disney World before they grow up. Your encounters with the awful majesty of the law are limited to a speeding ticket from Al Caldwell’s friend Officer Fatback.
Why, then, should you, before boarding an aircraft to take your kids on that long-promised adventure to Disney World, be forced to take off your shoes, empty your pockets, be zapped with nudity rays by blinking, hooting, beeping machines designed by Captain Nemo, raise your hands in surrender, and suffer the gropings of the Roderick Spodes of the Transportation Security Administration?
In sum, why is the ordinary American presumed by his own government to be the enemy?
Security on airplanes, trains, buses, and ships is not trivial matter in a time of war, and just now we cannot expect to board a vessel as blithely as folks did as recently as the 1970s. Even so, why are the OGPU assigned to make our transit secure so focused on humiliating Americans?
Not so long ago airport security apologetically looked through your carry-on bag and wished you a safe journey. Because of The Religion of Peace and their exploding panties security has become more intense, and rightly so, but why have TSA personnel become so hostile to the traveling public? Is freedom of movement a matter of suspicion?
Our democratically-elected government has, for our safety, forbidden us to travel with nail clippers, shampoo bottles, or one of those itty-bitty Swiss Army knives, and requires us to eat our airline meals – provided you can get one – with flimsy, brittle flatware. Our democratically-elected government has dictated that Americans cannot be trusted with nail clippers, shampoo, pocketknives, or even a usable fork and (eek!) knife.
We Americans who could once travel freely within the borders of our own country are now subjected to strange radiation from strange machines and fondling from strange people. And these strange people yell a great deal, slam our possessions around, and don’t wash between gropings.
Excuse me for asking, dear elected government, but shouldn’t the TSA be going after evil people instead of functional dinner forks and our grandmothers?
TSA and this family newspaper leave you with some random thoughts for this new age of luxury air travel:
Briefs? Or boxers?
When ink cartridges are outlawed, only outlaws will have ink cartridges.
When panties are outlawed, only outlaws will have panties.
America – love it or get nekkid on TSA tellyvision in order to leave it.
Fourth Amendment? What’s that?
Work harder – thousands of TSA functionaries depend on you to pay them to humiliate you and your children.
Show me your papers and your body parts, comrade.
Abandon dignity all ye who enter here.
Be nice to the TSA guy touchy-feely-ing your children; he’s going to choose your cell.
Keep your shirt on, pal – until Security Officer Igor lovingly tells you to take it off.
Don’t get your panties in a twist; the TSA will do that for you.
And if you’re boarding Aer Lingus – it’s a thong way to Tipperary.
-30-
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Government in Your Underwear
Suppose that you were in World War II. Or perhaps in Korea, Lebanon, Viet-Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or some bleak air base along the Arctic circle, or hazarding yourself in a patrol plane or aboard a destroyer between here and Cuba during one of Kruschev and Castro’s giddier moments. Or suppose that you are an ordinary working American – and you surely are – who goes off to work most days. You pay your taxes, rake your leaves, and try to save enough to take the rug-rats to Disney World before they grow up. Your encounters with the awful majesty of the law are limited to a speeding ticket from Al Caldwell’s friend Officer Fatback.
Why, then, should you, before boarding an aircraft to take your kids on that long-promised adventure to Disney World, be forced to take off your shoes, empty your pockets, be zapped with nudity rays by blinking, hooting, beeping machines designed by Captain Nemo, raise your hands in surrender, and suffer the gropings of the Roderick Spodes of the Transportation Security Administration?
In sum, why is the ordinary American presumed by his own government to be the enemy?
Security on airplanes, trains, buses, and ships is not trivial matter in a time of war, and just now we cannot expect to board a vessel as blithely as folks did as recently as the 1970s. Even so, why are the OGPU assigned to make our transit secure so focused on humiliating Americans?
Not so long ago airport security apologetically looked through your carry-on bag and wished you a safe journey. Because of The Religion of Peace and their exploding panties security has become more intense, and rightly so, but why have TSA personnel become so hostile to the traveling public? Is freedom of movement a matter of suspicion?
Our democratically-elected government has, for our safety, forbidden us to travel with nail clippers, shampoo bottles, or one of those itty-bitty Swiss Army knives, and requires us to eat our airline meals – provided you can get one – with flimsy, brittle flatware. Our democratically-elected government has dictated that Americans cannot be trusted with nail clippers, shampoo, pocketknives, or even a usable fork and (eek!) knife.
We Americans who could once travel freely within the borders of our own country are now subjected to strange radiation from strange machines and fondling from strange people. And these strange people yell a great deal, slam our possessions around, and don’t wash between gropings.
Excuse me for asking, dear elected government, but shouldn’t the TSA be going after evil people instead of functional dinner forks and our grandmothers?
TSA and this family newspaper leave you with some random thoughts for this new age of luxury air travel:
Briefs? Or boxers?
When ink cartridges are outlawed, only outlaws will have ink cartridges.
When panties are outlawed, only outlaws will have panties.
America – love it or get nekkid on TSA tellyvision in order to leave it.
Fourth Amendment? What’s that?
Work harder – thousands of TSA functionaries depend on you to pay them to humiliate you and your children.
Show me your papers and your body parts, comrade.
Abandon dignity all ye who enter here.
Be nice to the TSA guy touchy-feely-ing your children; he’s going to choose your cell.
Keep your shirt on, pal – until Security Officer Igor lovingly tells you to take it off.
Don’t get your panties in a twist; the TSA will do that for you.
And if you’re boarding Aer Lingus – it’s a thong way to Tipperary.
-30-
The Government in Your Underwear
Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Government in Your Underwear
Suppose that you were in World War II. Or perhaps in Korea, Lebanon, Viet-Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or some bleak air base along the Arctic circle, or hazarding yourself in a patrol plane or aboard a destroyer between here and Cuba during one of Kruschev and Castro’s giddier moments. Or suppose that you are an ordinary working American – and you surely are – who goes off to work most days. You pay your taxes, rake your leaves, and try to save enough to take the rug-rats to Disney World before they grow up. Your encounters with the awful majesty of the law are limited to a speeding ticket from Al Caldwell’s friend Officer Fatback.
Why, then, should you, before boarding an aircraft to take your kids on that long-promised adventure to Disney World, be forced to take off your shoes, empty your pockets, be zapped with nudity rays by blinking, hooting, beeping machines designed by Captain Nemo, raise your hands in surrender, and suffer the gropings of the Roderick Spodes of the Transportation Security Administration?
In sum, why is the ordinary American presumed by his own government to be the enemy?
Security on airplanes, trains, buses, and ships is not trivial matter in a time of war, and just now we cannot expect to board a vessel as blithely as folks did as recently as the 1970s. Even so, why are the OGPU assigned to make our transit secure so focused on humiliating Americans?
Not so long ago airport security apologetically looked through your carry-on bag and wished you a safe journey. Because of The Religion of Peace and their exploding panties security has become more intense, and rightly so, but why have TSA personnel become so hostile to the traveling public? Is freedom of movement a matter of suspicion?
Our democratically-elected government has, for our safety, forbidden us to travel with nail clippers, shampoo bottles, or one of those itty-bitty Swiss Army knives, and requires us to eat our airline meals – provided you can get one – with flimsy, brittle flatware. Our democratically-elected government has dictated that Americans cannot be trusted with nail clippers, shampoo, pocketknives, or even a usable fork and (eek!) knife.
We Americans who could once travel freely within the borders of our own country are now subjected to strange radiation from strange machines and fondling from strange people. And these strange people yell a great deal, slam our possessions around, and don’t wash between gropings.
Excuse me for asking, dear elected government, but shouldn’t the TSA be going after evil people instead of functional dinner forks and our grandmothers?
TSA and this family newspaper leave you with some random thoughts for this new age of luxury air travel:
Briefs? Or boxers?
When ink cartridges are outlawed, only outlaws will have ink cartridges.
When panties are outlawed, only outlaws will have panties.
America – love it or get nekkid on TSA tellyvision in order to leave it.
Fourth Amendment? What’s that?
Work harder – thousands of TSA functionaries depend on you to pay them to humiliate you and your children.
Show me your papers and your body parts, comrade.
Abandon dignity all ye who enter here.
Be nice to the TSA guy touchy-feely-ing your children; he’s going to choose your cell.
Keep your shirt on, pal – until Security Officer Igor lovingly tells you to take it off.
Don’t get your panties in a twist; the TSA will do that for you.
And if you’re boarding Aer Lingus – it’s a thong way to Tipperary.
-30-
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Government in Your Underwear
Suppose that you were in World War II. Or perhaps in Korea, Lebanon, Viet-Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or some bleak air base along the Arctic circle, or hazarding yourself in a patrol plane or aboard a destroyer between here and Cuba during one of Kruschev and Castro’s giddier moments. Or suppose that you are an ordinary working American – and you surely are – who goes off to work most days. You pay your taxes, rake your leaves, and try to save enough to take the rug-rats to Disney World before they grow up. Your encounters with the awful majesty of the law are limited to a speeding ticket from Al Caldwell’s friend Officer Fatback.
Why, then, should you, before boarding an aircraft to take your kids on that long-promised adventure to Disney World, be forced to take off your shoes, empty your pockets, be zapped with nudity rays by blinking, hooting, beeping machines designed by Captain Nemo, raise your hands in surrender, and suffer the gropings of the Roderick Spodes of the Transportation Security Administration?
In sum, why is the ordinary American presumed by his own government to be the enemy?
Security on airplanes, trains, buses, and ships is not trivial matter in a time of war, and just now we cannot expect to board a vessel as blithely as folks did as recently as the 1970s. Even so, why are the OGPU assigned to make our transit secure so focused on humiliating Americans?
Not so long ago airport security apologetically looked through your carry-on bag and wished you a safe journey. Because of The Religion of Peace and their exploding panties security has become more intense, and rightly so, but why have TSA personnel become so hostile to the traveling public? Is freedom of movement a matter of suspicion?
Our democratically-elected government has, for our safety, forbidden us to travel with nail clippers, shampoo bottles, or one of those itty-bitty Swiss Army knives, and requires us to eat our airline meals – provided you can get one – with flimsy, brittle flatware. Our democratically-elected government has dictated that Americans cannot be trusted with nail clippers, shampoo, pocketknives, or even a usable fork and (eek!) knife.
We Americans who could once travel freely within the borders of our own country are now subjected to strange radiation from strange machines and fondling from strange people. And these strange people yell a great deal, slam our possessions around, and don’t wash between gropings.
Excuse me for asking, dear elected government, but shouldn’t the TSA be going after evil people instead of functional dinner forks and our grandmothers?
TSA and this family newspaper leave you with some random thoughts for this new age of luxury air travel:
Briefs? Or boxers?
When ink cartridges are outlawed, only outlaws will have ink cartridges.
When panties are outlawed, only outlaws will have panties.
America – love it or get nekkid on TSA tellyvision in order to leave it.
Fourth Amendment? What’s that?
Work harder – thousands of TSA functionaries depend on you to pay them to humiliate you and your children.
Show me your papers and your body parts, comrade.
Abandon dignity all ye who enter here.
Be nice to the TSA guy touchy-feely-ing your children; he’s going to choose your cell.
Keep your shirt on, pal – until Security Officer Igor lovingly tells you to take it off.
Don’t get your panties in a twist; the TSA will do that for you.
And if you’re boarding Aer Lingus – it’s a thong way to Tipperary.
-30-
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Cleopatra in Rome
Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Cleopatra in Rome
In 46 B.C. Cleopatra and her entourage of sycophants and slaves journeyed to Rome to make obeisance to the new dominant world power and to claim a husband. Cleo had given birth to Julius’ son, but Julius went back to Rome to arrange things so he could be acclaimed king. He had a wife in Rome, Calpurnia, and Cal probably wasn’t really happy about sharing her husband with a Macedonian-Egyptian love-goddess, even for state reasons. Women are like that.
Cleopatra co-ruled with her little brother, who was also her husband. The Ptolemys were like that. She later had him murdered. The Ptolemys were like that. Indeed, Cleopatra had any number of her family murdered. Yes, the Ptolemys were like that. Ptolemy family reunions must have resembled Bagdad on one of its more festive evenings.
Meanwhile, back in the Senate, Cassius, Brutus, and other republicans did the Gensu thing to Julius, and so Cleo fled home to Egypt, where later she lived in domestic bliss for a while with Julius’ old pal Marc.
20th Century Fox’s 1963 film Cleopatra featured as its centerpiece Cleo’s entry into Rome with gazillions of slaves pulling the royal float in the form of a sphinx. Aboard were negligee-sort-of-clad girls adoring the putative incarnation of Isis, and servants and fan-wavers and security guards and lots of other of her folks putting on the Anubis for the Roman crowd. Cleo awed the Romans (but not Julius’s wife) with exotic displays, exotic dancers, and exotic animals, and her exotic self. This film scene alone was so expensive that it nearly put Fox into bankruptcy. Fox was financed by investors, however; the real thing over 2,000 years ago was financed by starving Egyptians suffering economic collapse and civil unrest back along the Nile.
Happily, in our more democratic time our elected leaders modestly regard themselves as mere mortals, equals among their fellow citizens. Our elected American leaders would never give offense to another nation by bringing along such a huge field-force that the trip would appear to be a colonial expedition among barbaric peoples in the shadows of the Hindu Kush rather than a state visit to a great and prosperous nation. Our leaders would never take the taxes of hard-working fellow-citizens in order to provide themselves and their retinues grotesquely expensive flying barges. Our leaders would never surround themselves with a Praetorian Guard for fear of their own fellow-citizens. Our of-the-people leaders, certainly our Congress, would never even dream of, say, appropriating military aircraft for the privileged use of themselves and their families.
No, no American would ever play the Romanov, the Ptolemy, or the Hohenzollern (say that five times really quickly).
As Alexander Hamilton said during a debate, “Here, sir, the people govern.” And, by cracky, he was right.
-30-
Mhall46184@aol.com
Cleopatra in Rome
In 46 B.C. Cleopatra and her entourage of sycophants and slaves journeyed to Rome to make obeisance to the new dominant world power and to claim a husband. Cleo had given birth to Julius’ son, but Julius went back to Rome to arrange things so he could be acclaimed king. He had a wife in Rome, Calpurnia, and Cal probably wasn’t really happy about sharing her husband with a Macedonian-Egyptian love-goddess, even for state reasons. Women are like that.
Cleopatra co-ruled with her little brother, who was also her husband. The Ptolemys were like that. She later had him murdered. The Ptolemys were like that. Indeed, Cleopatra had any number of her family murdered. Yes, the Ptolemys were like that. Ptolemy family reunions must have resembled Bagdad on one of its more festive evenings.
Meanwhile, back in the Senate, Cassius, Brutus, and other republicans did the Gensu thing to Julius, and so Cleo fled home to Egypt, where later she lived in domestic bliss for a while with Julius’ old pal Marc.
20th Century Fox’s 1963 film Cleopatra featured as its centerpiece Cleo’s entry into Rome with gazillions of slaves pulling the royal float in the form of a sphinx. Aboard were negligee-sort-of-clad girls adoring the putative incarnation of Isis, and servants and fan-wavers and security guards and lots of other of her folks putting on the Anubis for the Roman crowd. Cleo awed the Romans (but not Julius’s wife) with exotic displays, exotic dancers, and exotic animals, and her exotic self. This film scene alone was so expensive that it nearly put Fox into bankruptcy. Fox was financed by investors, however; the real thing over 2,000 years ago was financed by starving Egyptians suffering economic collapse and civil unrest back along the Nile.
Happily, in our more democratic time our elected leaders modestly regard themselves as mere mortals, equals among their fellow citizens. Our elected American leaders would never give offense to another nation by bringing along such a huge field-force that the trip would appear to be a colonial expedition among barbaric peoples in the shadows of the Hindu Kush rather than a state visit to a great and prosperous nation. Our leaders would never take the taxes of hard-working fellow-citizens in order to provide themselves and their retinues grotesquely expensive flying barges. Our leaders would never surround themselves with a Praetorian Guard for fear of their own fellow-citizens. Our of-the-people leaders, certainly our Congress, would never even dream of, say, appropriating military aircraft for the privileged use of themselves and their families.
No, no American would ever play the Romanov, the Ptolemy, or the Hohenzollern (say that five times really quickly).
As Alexander Hamilton said during a debate, “Here, sir, the people govern.” And, by cracky, he was right.
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Education for the 21st Century
Bubbles. #2 pencils. Bubbles. #2 pencils. If the greatest challenge to American youth is a blank bubble that needs shading with a #2 pencil, we've made them ready.
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