Mack Hall
The first smoke had barely risen from a famous no-tell in Las Vegas before someone said that the fire was probably caused by – surprise -- a welder’s spark.
Why is almost every fire attributed to a welder’s spark? Why is the cause never an accountant’s cigarette? Or someone’s made-in-China electric heater octopussed into one outlet along with a computer, a television, and a hair dryer?
Welders, who practice applied metallurgy, must study for multiple certifications before they may perform their art and science with a catalogue of impedimenta, including gasses, glasses, rods, electrical gadgets, helmets, and safety lines, and are repeatedly tested by each employer or contractor. A welder is thus highly unlikely to be unaware that his endeavors involve the generation of great heat.
Surely no welder ever said "Gee, I don’t want to make a mess; let me spread lots of old newspaper on the floor beneath this task," or perhaps "Hmmm, I’ll bet this job would go faster if I propped these two pieces of metal across a couple of tanks of gasoline."
And yet, for all their knowledge and experience, welders are the first to receive scornful scowls of uniformed judgment and focused fingers of Clintonian accusation when an unplanned fire spoils someone’s afternoon.
One begins to infer that the phrase "welder’s spark" is coded into some sort of speed-dial system for news agencies.
Is there a fire in a hundred-year-old building amateurishly re-wired by its owners based on internet directions? Must be a welder’s spark.
Is a ship aflame off Alaska? Must be a welder’s spark.
Does a sensitive senator suffer a headache? Must be a welder’s spark.
That busy little welder’s spark sure gets around. What other mischief might a welder’s spark cause?
Colonel Mustard murdered Professor Plum in the library with a welder’s spark.
Macbeth famously asked "Is this is a welder’s spark which I see before me…?"
High school athletes may be tested for illicit welders’ sparks.
California legalizes sniffing welder’s sparks by prescription.
Angelina Jolie is pregnant by a welder’s spark.
Police and animal control officers raid filthy house crowded with starving welders’ sparks.
President Bill Clinton blames Senator Obama for playing the welders’ sparks card.
Welders’ sparks cause global warming.
Child mauled by unleashed welders’ sparks.
James Dobson says welders’ sparks are not a real religion.
Detroit Mayor sends steamy welders’ sparks to his lover via email.
Activists demand that welders’ sparks be removed from school vending machines.
Yep, you can bet your cigarette lighter, candles, leaky gas cans, and overloaded circuits on this – the first reporter on the scene of a fire will always blame it on a welder’s spark.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Huckabee and the Squirrel
Mack Hall
Mike Huckabee ate Rocky the Flying Squirrel!
Okay, he really didn’t, but he did state while campaigning in Las Vegas that when he was in college he cooked squirrels in his popcorn popper.
This naturally leads the American voter to ask two salient questions about why a college student cooked squirrels in a popcorn popper: Was this because of a shortage of popcorn? Or of a shortage of neighborhood cats?
One imagines Senator Edwards ordering squirrel in French – but only so that he can sue it. Or Senator Hillary Rodham dropping a squirrel at thirty feet with only her Glare of Death.
What we are dealing with, my fellow Americans, is a candidate for the Presidency of the United States who may have struck on a solution for starvation in third-world countries: let them eat squirrel.
President Bill Clinton might interrupt to maintain that he personally saw squirrels bullying union culinary workers during the cauci in Las Vegas.
Both President Bill Clinton and Governor / Reverend Mike Huckabee are from Hope, Arkansas, which may explain much.
Several years ago a friend and I spent the night in Hope, and had a sandwich at the local Dairy Queen. There was no squirrel on the electric menu, but I think the culinary workers were humming the theme from Deliverance.
I too have eaten the arboreal rodent; it was one of those experiences my Depression-raised father thought I ought to know about. Those of us raised in the security of plenty mock such a diet only from our ignorance, for mankind has always lived on the margins of starvation. We who motor along highways lined with cafes’ and grocery stores full of good, inexpensive food almost never think about the harsh reality that our ancestors almost always needed a little more protein for the pot.
And you never, ever joke about food with Depression babies. Once upon a time I pushed away a plate (not squirrel), and my father said "Eat your supper; there are children starving in China who would love to have those beans / peas / potatoes / corn."
Suffering from a pre-adolescent failure to think critically, I said "Well, they can have mine."
The sequel was not pretty, and to this day its memory makes me sit lightly.
A modern host might ask you of a meal "How did you like the presentation?"
A host raised in the 1950s may ask "Was it good?"
But your Mawmaw and Pawpaw will ask, in genuine concern, "Did you get enough to eat?"
The psychic pain of real hunger and fear of hunger runs deep.
As for me, I am a good hundred pounds away from ever again eating squirrel or broccoli.
And as for the candidates’ dietary choices, who gets eaten next – Alvin the Chipmunk?
Mike Huckabee ate Rocky the Flying Squirrel!
Okay, he really didn’t, but he did state while campaigning in Las Vegas that when he was in college he cooked squirrels in his popcorn popper.
This naturally leads the American voter to ask two salient questions about why a college student cooked squirrels in a popcorn popper: Was this because of a shortage of popcorn? Or of a shortage of neighborhood cats?
One imagines Senator Edwards ordering squirrel in French – but only so that he can sue it. Or Senator Hillary Rodham dropping a squirrel at thirty feet with only her Glare of Death.
What we are dealing with, my fellow Americans, is a candidate for the Presidency of the United States who may have struck on a solution for starvation in third-world countries: let them eat squirrel.
President Bill Clinton might interrupt to maintain that he personally saw squirrels bullying union culinary workers during the cauci in Las Vegas.
Both President Bill Clinton and Governor / Reverend Mike Huckabee are from Hope, Arkansas, which may explain much.
Several years ago a friend and I spent the night in Hope, and had a sandwich at the local Dairy Queen. There was no squirrel on the electric menu, but I think the culinary workers were humming the theme from Deliverance.
I too have eaten the arboreal rodent; it was one of those experiences my Depression-raised father thought I ought to know about. Those of us raised in the security of plenty mock such a diet only from our ignorance, for mankind has always lived on the margins of starvation. We who motor along highways lined with cafes’ and grocery stores full of good, inexpensive food almost never think about the harsh reality that our ancestors almost always needed a little more protein for the pot.
And you never, ever joke about food with Depression babies. Once upon a time I pushed away a plate (not squirrel), and my father said "Eat your supper; there are children starving in China who would love to have those beans / peas / potatoes / corn."
Suffering from a pre-adolescent failure to think critically, I said "Well, they can have mine."
The sequel was not pretty, and to this day its memory makes me sit lightly.
A modern host might ask you of a meal "How did you like the presentation?"
A host raised in the 1950s may ask "Was it good?"
But your Mawmaw and Pawpaw will ask, in genuine concern, "Did you get enough to eat?"
The psychic pain of real hunger and fear of hunger runs deep.
As for me, I am a good hundred pounds away from ever again eating squirrel or broccoli.
And as for the candidates’ dietary choices, who gets eaten next – Alvin the Chipmunk?
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Chariots of Plastic
Mack Hall
Seventy-something years after Germany invented The People’s Car, India has reinvented it.
The Tata Group (I’m not sure what a group of Tatas is, or even a single Tata) has built the prototype of a five-seater sedan, the Nano, which will cost $2,500, about the price of a couple of cups of de-fatinated cuppacino at Starbuck’s.
The Nano features a two-cylinder gasoline engine, will putt-putt down the road for fifty miles on a gallon of gas, and meets all European safety and emissions standards. The Nano features no power windows, no radio, and no air-conditioning. In short – and the Nano is fairly short – it’s pretty much a Hindu reincarnation of the Model T.
You and I can’t buy one. For now.
The next step up is the Maruti 800 from India and the Chery from China at about $5,000 each.
You and I can’t buy one of those either. For now.
These first-world cars (because we are now exporters of raw materials, not manufactured goods, to China and India) are cheap and efficient, and so naturally the environmentalists are concerned about the planet. This means they are concerned about uppity peasants enjoying freedom. After all, if Gupta and Chang can afford their own cars, they can drive to the next town for a better job, and maybe even move out to the suburbs. No longer will Gupta and Chang be restricted to living in the center of Bombay and Shanghai, dependent on politically-controlled public transportation and public housing.
An advantage for Hindus is that getting together to burn Christian churches will be more convenient. Instead of mobs with pitchforks and torches running down the streets, India can have mobs in their Nanos and plastic cigarette lighters driving down the streets. The old days of spreading rumors by word of mouth will be replaced with spreading rumors via text-messaging, thus advancing civilization.
One wonders – does a mob burning a church have to buy carbon-offsets for the event?
India is a remarkable nation. Controlled by the British for almost two hundred years, India after independence has become more British than the British. India is a capitalist nation that exports teachers, investors, technology, and manufactured goods all over the world, while Britain, where the Industrial Revolution began, is now little more than a Soviet Socialist Disneyland increasingly controlled by…I’m supposed to say extremists, I suppose, or disaffected youths.
India, having fought for the British in World War I, World War II, and the colonial wars, kept its British military traditions, and, unlike Britain, is proud of its army, its navy, its nuclear weapons, and its developing space program. India, like China, is taking its turn as an awakening and dynamic giant, while America and Europe seem to be idling in a lotus-land of self-indulgent pop culture, dime-store religious mysticism, junk food, and interminable lawsuits.
In sum, we might someday be driving our Nanos to our jobs at a Mahindra plant in Beaumont, and reporting to Mr. Gupta.
Seventy-something years after Germany invented The People’s Car, India has reinvented it.
The Tata Group (I’m not sure what a group of Tatas is, or even a single Tata) has built the prototype of a five-seater sedan, the Nano, which will cost $2,500, about the price of a couple of cups of de-fatinated cuppacino at Starbuck’s.
The Nano features a two-cylinder gasoline engine, will putt-putt down the road for fifty miles on a gallon of gas, and meets all European safety and emissions standards. The Nano features no power windows, no radio, and no air-conditioning. In short – and the Nano is fairly short – it’s pretty much a Hindu reincarnation of the Model T.
You and I can’t buy one. For now.
The next step up is the Maruti 800 from India and the Chery from China at about $5,000 each.
You and I can’t buy one of those either. For now.
These first-world cars (because we are now exporters of raw materials, not manufactured goods, to China and India) are cheap and efficient, and so naturally the environmentalists are concerned about the planet. This means they are concerned about uppity peasants enjoying freedom. After all, if Gupta and Chang can afford their own cars, they can drive to the next town for a better job, and maybe even move out to the suburbs. No longer will Gupta and Chang be restricted to living in the center of Bombay and Shanghai, dependent on politically-controlled public transportation and public housing.
An advantage for Hindus is that getting together to burn Christian churches will be more convenient. Instead of mobs with pitchforks and torches running down the streets, India can have mobs in their Nanos and plastic cigarette lighters driving down the streets. The old days of spreading rumors by word of mouth will be replaced with spreading rumors via text-messaging, thus advancing civilization.
One wonders – does a mob burning a church have to buy carbon-offsets for the event?
India is a remarkable nation. Controlled by the British for almost two hundred years, India after independence has become more British than the British. India is a capitalist nation that exports teachers, investors, technology, and manufactured goods all over the world, while Britain, where the Industrial Revolution began, is now little more than a Soviet Socialist Disneyland increasingly controlled by…I’m supposed to say extremists, I suppose, or disaffected youths.
India, having fought for the British in World War I, World War II, and the colonial wars, kept its British military traditions, and, unlike Britain, is proud of its army, its navy, its nuclear weapons, and its developing space program. India, like China, is taking its turn as an awakening and dynamic giant, while America and Europe seem to be idling in a lotus-land of self-indulgent pop culture, dime-store religious mysticism, junk food, and interminable lawsuits.
In sum, we might someday be driving our Nanos to our jobs at a Mahindra plant in Beaumont, and reporting to Mr. Gupta.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Is Primary Voting Primarily for Primates?
Mack Hall
The non-system of primaries and caucussing is fascinating, possibly because, like John Kerry’s self-invented war record, it is a great mystery. However, after much study one can figure out how the typical primary caucus works.
In the rural South, of course, there is no mystery – One Party, One Primary, One Folk.
But in New England, the home of the bean and the codpiece, a citizen enjoys choices, and those funny little states up there in Robert Frost country entertain the world with an eclecticity of Ye Olde New England gatherings to determine, well, not much of anything.
On the appointed day for a pricus or a caucary, the sturdy New England farmers and their wives, and the less sturdy New England investment bankers and their significant others, tramp through the snow carrying blunderbusses and Geneva Bibles to gather in houses, schools, and Farmer Ezekiel’s barn to invoke folksy ain’t-they-quainte Ye Olde New England votingness.
In one corner of the room the Obama supporters, young and energetic, cluster together in their Dockers and Earth Shoes and cable-knit sweaters and say nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America.
In another corner of the room the Hillary supporters, both of them wearing red power-blazers and sturdy shoes and 1970s jet-pilot glasses, hug each other and reminisce about 1968 and The Revolution while saying nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America. The McCain straight-talk expressos wander between this group and the kitchen, checking their GPS systems for Change and Hope and a New Day in America.
In yet another corner of the room the Romney supporters in their Cole-Haan pinch-tassle loafers and Izod shirts try desperately to sound like what they imagine The People to be while saying nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America.
In the remaining corner the Huckabee supporters clutch their spit-cups, cinch up their gimme caps another notch, look around suspiciously, and say nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America.
Outside in the snow, Ron Paul’s obedientiaries practice marching in step by torchlight, breaking occasionally to chase reporters and to beat up anyone who says nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America.
Members of each group are free to say nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America, and then shift allegiances to move to another group which says nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America. After a period of Red (or Blue) Rover, Red Rover, Can Ebenezer Come Over, folks make their decisions, their heads are counted, and the results are sent to the state election commission and to the world.
Now this works only if the groundhog doesn’t see his shadow by the light of one of those squiggly little glass thingies full of poisonous mercury, in which case the town crier cries "Oyez! Oyez!’ and the quaint New Englanders do the dance of the mid-winter fertility festival in wooden clogs, and start over.
The Huckabeings angrily maintain that the results were pre-determined by evil functionaries in the Vatican and sent to secret operatives via the secret radios in the secret basement of Bob Newhart’s inn.
At the end of the Norman Rockwellian evening the caucasians enjoy a mug of Ye Old New England cider or something, and then go outside to be screamed at and threatened by the Ron Paulistas.
With one per cent of precincts counted Fox News calls the races, and the candidates stand before their sound-alike-cheering faithful to say Nice Things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America, thank the state from the bottoms of their pancreases or something, talk about how honest they are and how they just want to serve The Just Plain Ol’ Common Workin’ People, and then fly away in private jets to shake babies and kiss hands (or some other body part) in other little snowbound states where the most excitement for four years running is watching the statue of Revolutionary Colonel Hiram Smedleybottom change reflected colors as the town’s traffic light changes.
And yet, somehow, the Republic survives.
The non-system of primaries and caucussing is fascinating, possibly because, like John Kerry’s self-invented war record, it is a great mystery. However, after much study one can figure out how the typical primary caucus works.
In the rural South, of course, there is no mystery – One Party, One Primary, One Folk.
But in New England, the home of the bean and the codpiece, a citizen enjoys choices, and those funny little states up there in Robert Frost country entertain the world with an eclecticity of Ye Olde New England gatherings to determine, well, not much of anything.
On the appointed day for a pricus or a caucary, the sturdy New England farmers and their wives, and the less sturdy New England investment bankers and their significant others, tramp through the snow carrying blunderbusses and Geneva Bibles to gather in houses, schools, and Farmer Ezekiel’s barn to invoke folksy ain’t-they-quainte Ye Olde New England votingness.
In one corner of the room the Obama supporters, young and energetic, cluster together in their Dockers and Earth Shoes and cable-knit sweaters and say nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America.
In another corner of the room the Hillary supporters, both of them wearing red power-blazers and sturdy shoes and 1970s jet-pilot glasses, hug each other and reminisce about 1968 and The Revolution while saying nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America. The McCain straight-talk expressos wander between this group and the kitchen, checking their GPS systems for Change and Hope and a New Day in America.
In yet another corner of the room the Romney supporters in their Cole-Haan pinch-tassle loafers and Izod shirts try desperately to sound like what they imagine The People to be while saying nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America.
In the remaining corner the Huckabee supporters clutch their spit-cups, cinch up their gimme caps another notch, look around suspiciously, and say nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America.
Outside in the snow, Ron Paul’s obedientiaries practice marching in step by torchlight, breaking occasionally to chase reporters and to beat up anyone who says nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America.
Members of each group are free to say nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America, and then shift allegiances to move to another group which says nice things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America. After a period of Red (or Blue) Rover, Red Rover, Can Ebenezer Come Over, folks make their decisions, their heads are counted, and the results are sent to the state election commission and to the world.
Now this works only if the groundhog doesn’t see his shadow by the light of one of those squiggly little glass thingies full of poisonous mercury, in which case the town crier cries "Oyez! Oyez!’ and the quaint New Englanders do the dance of the mid-winter fertility festival in wooden clogs, and start over.
The Huckabeings angrily maintain that the results were pre-determined by evil functionaries in the Vatican and sent to secret operatives via the secret radios in the secret basement of Bob Newhart’s inn.
At the end of the Norman Rockwellian evening the caucasians enjoy a mug of Ye Old New England cider or something, and then go outside to be screamed at and threatened by the Ron Paulistas.
With one per cent of precincts counted Fox News calls the races, and the candidates stand before their sound-alike-cheering faithful to say Nice Things about Change and Hope and a New Day in America, thank the state from the bottoms of their pancreases or something, talk about how honest they are and how they just want to serve The Just Plain Ol’ Common Workin’ People, and then fly away in private jets to shake babies and kiss hands (or some other body part) in other little snowbound states where the most excitement for four years running is watching the statue of Revolutionary Colonel Hiram Smedleybottom change reflected colors as the town’s traffic light changes.
And yet, somehow, the Republic survives.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
White Lung Syndrome
Mack Hall
Trying to understand the writers’ strike is genuinely problematic. There are only about 10,000 entertainment writers along the New York – Hollywood axis, and while some actually are on strike, others of the brothers / sisters / comrades are cutting separate deals with Big Media.
And for what are some of (not all) the writers striking? A reduction in job injuries from paper cuts? The issue appears to be the arcane matter of residuals from internet reproduction or re-broadcast of movies and television shows. This makes some sense – when a movie is re-broadcast, income from the advertisements and sales of tickets means that someone is making money from the exhibition, so the writers and actors should receive some part of that.
Where the argument falls apart is that the concept of residuals does not obtain in other fields of endeavor.
Consider the modest little Ford Escape owned by an aging and not very successful writer. Once upon a time auto workers in Michigan assembled the little car, for which labor they were paid. The aging and not very successful then bought the little Ford Escape, and enjoys driving the machine around. The workers who built the car do not enjoy residuals every time the car is driven, repaired, or re-sold.
Several years ago, following Hurricane Rita (which never happened because it had nothing to do with New Orleans), the aging and not very successful writer hired a roofing company to re-roof his hurricane de-roofed house, and a good job it was. Every time the rain falls or the cold winds blow the aging and not very successful writer enjoys the benefits of his excellent new roof, and yet the roofer and his crew receive no residuals.
If the guy who scribbled “Take my wife – please!” receives residuals for the rest of his life based on a one-time effort, why not residuals for auto workers and roofers?
The nice lady who cuts the hair of the aging and not very successful writer does not receive a residual every time some lissome lass coos “Oooooh, look at the geriatric hottie with the great haircut!”
The Writers (sic – that should of course be “writers’”) Guild of America forbids actors to cross their picket lines and has forbade Jay Leno to deliver his own monologue made up of his own jokes that he thought up himself. One gathers that the WGA is not exactly a hotbed of freedom and individuality.
Now the WGA, somehow involved with SAG in striking against NBC and HFPA (Where Have All the Acronyms Gone, Long Time Passing…?), is threatening not to write for the awards shows.
Does this mean that awards shows had writers in the first place? Does it really take a professional writer to create the babble issuing forth from the heavily-lipsticked and decidedly foul mouth of some aging starlet receiving some sort of plastic award for having had a hit show in the 1960s and now peddling medications? “I just…oh, gosh…I mean…I just wanna…like, you know…um…you know, like…um…thank all my briefcase holders…um…and all the, like, you know, other little people…not that you’re really little…I mean, like…um, and you little people all over America…like, you know, in flyover country…like, you little people who worship me…because, like, you know…I bring some meaning…like…into…your pathetic little lives because you can’t read a freakin’ book or newspaper, and you just stare into that stupid glowing tube all the time…and…like…(BLEEP) that evil (BLEEP)ing George Bush and his (BLEEP)ing colonialist imperialist running dog capitalist war against the, like, you know, South Africans or something, like…you know…those funny little people in Argentina or somewhere like that…gosh, ain’t I cute!”
Residuals for writing jokes? Maybe. But first let the writers argue for residuals for miners and linemen and other people whose jobs keep us safe and warm and fed, and which involve more risk than dry-air allergens from an air-conditioned office atmosphere
Trying to understand the writers’ strike is genuinely problematic. There are only about 10,000 entertainment writers along the New York – Hollywood axis, and while some actually are on strike, others of the brothers / sisters / comrades are cutting separate deals with Big Media.
And for what are some of (not all) the writers striking? A reduction in job injuries from paper cuts? The issue appears to be the arcane matter of residuals from internet reproduction or re-broadcast of movies and television shows. This makes some sense – when a movie is re-broadcast, income from the advertisements and sales of tickets means that someone is making money from the exhibition, so the writers and actors should receive some part of that.
Where the argument falls apart is that the concept of residuals does not obtain in other fields of endeavor.
Consider the modest little Ford Escape owned by an aging and not very successful writer. Once upon a time auto workers in Michigan assembled the little car, for which labor they were paid. The aging and not very successful then bought the little Ford Escape, and enjoys driving the machine around. The workers who built the car do not enjoy residuals every time the car is driven, repaired, or re-sold.
Several years ago, following Hurricane Rita (which never happened because it had nothing to do with New Orleans), the aging and not very successful writer hired a roofing company to re-roof his hurricane de-roofed house, and a good job it was. Every time the rain falls or the cold winds blow the aging and not very successful writer enjoys the benefits of his excellent new roof, and yet the roofer and his crew receive no residuals.
If the guy who scribbled “Take my wife – please!” receives residuals for the rest of his life based on a one-time effort, why not residuals for auto workers and roofers?
The nice lady who cuts the hair of the aging and not very successful writer does not receive a residual every time some lissome lass coos “Oooooh, look at the geriatric hottie with the great haircut!”
The Writers (sic – that should of course be “writers’”) Guild of America forbids actors to cross their picket lines and has forbade Jay Leno to deliver his own monologue made up of his own jokes that he thought up himself. One gathers that the WGA is not exactly a hotbed of freedom and individuality.
Now the WGA, somehow involved with SAG in striking against NBC and HFPA (Where Have All the Acronyms Gone, Long Time Passing…?), is threatening not to write for the awards shows.
Does this mean that awards shows had writers in the first place? Does it really take a professional writer to create the babble issuing forth from the heavily-lipsticked and decidedly foul mouth of some aging starlet receiving some sort of plastic award for having had a hit show in the 1960s and now peddling medications? “I just…oh, gosh…I mean…I just wanna…like, you know…um…you know, like…um…thank all my briefcase holders…um…and all the, like, you know, other little people…not that you’re really little…I mean, like…um, and you little people all over America…like, you know, in flyover country…like, you little people who worship me…because, like, you know…I bring some meaning…like…into…your pathetic little lives because you can’t read a freakin’ book or newspaper, and you just stare into that stupid glowing tube all the time…and…like…(BLEEP) that evil (BLEEP)ing George Bush and his (BLEEP)ing colonialist imperialist running dog capitalist war against the, like, you know, South Africans or something, like…you know…those funny little people in Argentina or somewhere like that…gosh, ain’t I cute!”
Residuals for writing jokes? Maybe. But first let the writers argue for residuals for miners and linemen and other people whose jobs keep us safe and warm and fed, and which involve more risk than dry-air allergens from an air-conditioned office atmosphere
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Send Out the Clowns
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.
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 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.
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