Mack Hall
Luminous Mysteries
For Brandon-in-the-Hallway, Leah-Talky-Smurf, Chase-in-the-Back-of-the-Room, Alyssa-the-Troublemaker, Kyle-the-Baby-Bell, Marci-Marci, Erica Diane, Kandace, Christy & Misty (one of 'em is bad, bad, bad -- but which one!?), Kylie Brooke, Drew-the Pretty, Traci Natalia, Queen Amanda, Princess Jerrica, Kayla Drew, Lindsey-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, and Merry Barbie!
You fluttered through the fluorescented halls
Like butterflies upon their springtime wings,
And softly touched each flowering soul with love,
Gentling Lent into merry Eastertide
With joy, with happiness, with coffee cups.
Coffee and happiness are but two parts
Of holiness, the Rosary of youth:
Old cars, after-school jobs, crawling the mall,
Your untied shoelaces, your awful jokes
Giving comfort to a suffering, sin-stained world.
And though you yawned at Sunday morning Mass,
Our Lady's Church was ever a kid-safe place
To be, to think, to pray, to love, and you
Are forever a Luminous Mystery
Prayed in the happy morning of your lives.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
We're All Bankers Now
Mack Hall
Our government has, for reasons of its own, decided that failing banks – meaning their owners in Belgium or Spain, not the employees here in the USA -- should be rescued by the rest of us. Since our taxes will be employed for these endeavors, we, The People (bless us) are now owners of The People’s Banks.
Now that you and I are Owner-Comrade Bankers, shouldn’t we enjoy some of the old-fashioned perqs that go with swelling about as merchant bankers?
I wouldn’t bet on it, not that I could afford to bet. I think our lives as bankers will be the new style:
A banker’s life, old style: The occasional, um, conference in Las Vegas
A banker’s life, new style: Christmas party at Katfish Kloset
A banker’s life, old style: Cash bonuses
A banker’s life, new style: Coupons for two cups of drive-through coffee
A banker’s life, old style: Being greeted at the door by deferential employees
A banker’s life, new style: Being greeted at the door by a sullen security guard wielding an electronic wand that’s been places you really don’t want to know about
A banker’s life, old style: carpeted office with large windows
A banker’s life, new style: wherever you are now, probably with dim, energy-saving, mercury-poisoning, squiggly light bulbs
A banker’s life, old style: showing up for work at eight or nine
A banker’s life, new style: Dragging out of bed at four or five for the long drive to the plant which is due to close before autumn but you’ll have to find money to support the bank anyway
A banker’s life, old style: president of the Rotary Club
A banker’s life, new style: waiter at Rotary Club suppers
A banker’s life, old style: tailored suits
A banker’s life, new style: Nomex
A banker’s life, old style: leisurely luncheons at the club
A banker’s life, new style: a bag of cholesterol from GlopBurger
A banker’s life, old style: walnut-paneled boardrooms
A banker’s life, new style: a quick smoke out back by the dumpster
A banker’s life, old style: Rolex
A banker’s life, new style: Timex
A banker’s life, old style: Mont Blanc
A banker’s life, new style: Mont Bic
A banker’s life, old style: Cole-Haan
A banker’s life, new style: Goodwill
A banker’s life, old style: Private school for your kid in Switzerland
A banker’s life, new style: Hoping your kid can keep his job bagging groceries
A banker’s life, old style: Exchanging bon mots about the old days in the Skull and Bones
A banker’s life, new style: Swapping yarns about the old days in Iraq and Afghanistan
A banker’s life, old style: Skiing in Switzerland every winter
A banker’s life, new style: Disney World. Once. Maybe.
Work hard, my fellow Banker-Comrades; thousands of European and Chinese millionaires are depending on you.
-30-
Our government has, for reasons of its own, decided that failing banks – meaning their owners in Belgium or Spain, not the employees here in the USA -- should be rescued by the rest of us. Since our taxes will be employed for these endeavors, we, The People (bless us) are now owners of The People’s Banks.
Now that you and I are Owner-Comrade Bankers, shouldn’t we enjoy some of the old-fashioned perqs that go with swelling about as merchant bankers?
I wouldn’t bet on it, not that I could afford to bet. I think our lives as bankers will be the new style:
A banker’s life, old style: The occasional, um, conference in Las Vegas
A banker’s life, new style: Christmas party at Katfish Kloset
A banker’s life, old style: Cash bonuses
A banker’s life, new style: Coupons for two cups of drive-through coffee
A banker’s life, old style: Being greeted at the door by deferential employees
A banker’s life, new style: Being greeted at the door by a sullen security guard wielding an electronic wand that’s been places you really don’t want to know about
A banker’s life, old style: carpeted office with large windows
A banker’s life, new style: wherever you are now, probably with dim, energy-saving, mercury-poisoning, squiggly light bulbs
A banker’s life, old style: showing up for work at eight or nine
A banker’s life, new style: Dragging out of bed at four or five for the long drive to the plant which is due to close before autumn but you’ll have to find money to support the bank anyway
A banker’s life, old style: president of the Rotary Club
A banker’s life, new style: waiter at Rotary Club suppers
A banker’s life, old style: tailored suits
A banker’s life, new style: Nomex
A banker’s life, old style: leisurely luncheons at the club
A banker’s life, new style: a bag of cholesterol from GlopBurger
A banker’s life, old style: walnut-paneled boardrooms
A banker’s life, new style: a quick smoke out back by the dumpster
A banker’s life, old style: Rolex
A banker’s life, new style: Timex
A banker’s life, old style: Mont Blanc
A banker’s life, new style: Mont Bic
A banker’s life, old style: Cole-Haan
A banker’s life, new style: Goodwill
A banker’s life, old style: Private school for your kid in Switzerland
A banker’s life, new style: Hoping your kid can keep his job bagging groceries
A banker’s life, old style: Exchanging bon mots about the old days in the Skull and Bones
A banker’s life, new style: Swapping yarns about the old days in Iraq and Afghanistan
A banker’s life, old style: Skiing in Switzerland every winter
A banker’s life, new style: Disney World. Once. Maybe.
Work hard, my fellow Banker-Comrades; thousands of European and Chinese millionaires are depending on you.
-30-
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Dirty Books
Mack Hall
I am a product of…endless books…books in the study, books in the drawing room, books in the cloakroom, books…in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder…books of all kinds…
-- C. S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy
The Congress of the United States, having passed laws to protect us from psychotic nail clippers and large, menacing bottles of shampoo is now banning children’s books for our own good. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), passed last August as a response to lead-based paints on Chinese toys (the North Pole has been outsourced to Shanghai), embraces in a B-movie death-hug all children’s books printed before 1985.
Inks produced before that magical year are said to contain lead, and thus are said to endanger children. Said. But said by whom?
Just how many hundreds of copies of Little House on the Prairie a child would have to eat in order to ingest a measurable amount of lead has not been determined, nor is that Congress’ problem. The burden is ours. Anyone – meaning you or me – who gives a child a book printed before 1985 is obligated by law to spend hundreds of dollars having that book tested for lead.
Mom or Grandma, under that law you can be prosecuted for passing on to your favorite rug-rat that untested, unregistered copy of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm you so enjoyed as a girl.
After all, every parent’s worst nightmare is of his child being pursued down a dark street by lead-intoxicated Scuffy the Tugboat.
Pops, giving the lads in your life your boyhood copies of Old Yeller and Rifles for Watie is verboten unless you pay a great deal of money to have them tested and approved by a benevolent government.
One wonders if this book-banning is an expression of backdoor censorship of old and now incorrect books. A solid American kid who reads Johnny Tremain might be a little more uppity about oppressive governments than some glassy-eyed serf malnourished on the weirdness of Captain Underpants.
So many books have never been reprinted, and exist only because old copies reside in home libraries, public libraries, and used bookstores. The destruction of these books by government edict would be as great a crime against civilization as the Taliban blowing up ancient cultural artifacts in Afghanistan. 2,000-year-old works of art aren’t in harmony with Islam, and 100-year-old children’s books might not be in harmony with powerful and relatively anonymous functionaries within our federal government.
Government controls the means of distribution of intellectual property through the licensing, regulation, and monitoring of radio, television, telephones, and the ‘net. A printed book, though, is a silent expression of freedom. Reading a printed book is an activity that cannot easily be monitored. A book on one’s own shelves cannot be rewritten by a government agency’s computer technicians overnight.
But a book is not completely safe – it can be lost, burned, stolen, or seized. Nor are you safe. Someone in our government has found a way to threaten your freedom to read not by crudely banning books outright but by promoting a bogus health issue: who but a cad could possibly be against safeguarding the safety of children? Thus the book is not demonized, but rather the possibility of content of lead in the type, and by extension he who owns the book. To expose a child to a book thus becomes a crime.
To tyrants, buying your child an old book full of stories of heroes is a criminal act. In truth, giving your child that book makes you a real hero yourself.
Just be careful to look over your shoulder.
“I mean they’ve erased our history and are rewriting what remains…whole zones of literature are now forbidden and are disappearing from libraries.”
-- Antun to Josip re Tito’s Yugoslavia in Michael O’Brien’s The Island of the World
-30-
I am a product of…endless books…books in the study, books in the drawing room, books in the cloakroom, books…in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder…books of all kinds…
-- C. S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy
The Congress of the United States, having passed laws to protect us from psychotic nail clippers and large, menacing bottles of shampoo is now banning children’s books for our own good. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), passed last August as a response to lead-based paints on Chinese toys (the North Pole has been outsourced to Shanghai), embraces in a B-movie death-hug all children’s books printed before 1985.
Inks produced before that magical year are said to contain lead, and thus are said to endanger children. Said. But said by whom?
Just how many hundreds of copies of Little House on the Prairie a child would have to eat in order to ingest a measurable amount of lead has not been determined, nor is that Congress’ problem. The burden is ours. Anyone – meaning you or me – who gives a child a book printed before 1985 is obligated by law to spend hundreds of dollars having that book tested for lead.
Mom or Grandma, under that law you can be prosecuted for passing on to your favorite rug-rat that untested, unregistered copy of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm you so enjoyed as a girl.
After all, every parent’s worst nightmare is of his child being pursued down a dark street by lead-intoxicated Scuffy the Tugboat.
Pops, giving the lads in your life your boyhood copies of Old Yeller and Rifles for Watie is verboten unless you pay a great deal of money to have them tested and approved by a benevolent government.
One wonders if this book-banning is an expression of backdoor censorship of old and now incorrect books. A solid American kid who reads Johnny Tremain might be a little more uppity about oppressive governments than some glassy-eyed serf malnourished on the weirdness of Captain Underpants.
So many books have never been reprinted, and exist only because old copies reside in home libraries, public libraries, and used bookstores. The destruction of these books by government edict would be as great a crime against civilization as the Taliban blowing up ancient cultural artifacts in Afghanistan. 2,000-year-old works of art aren’t in harmony with Islam, and 100-year-old children’s books might not be in harmony with powerful and relatively anonymous functionaries within our federal government.
Government controls the means of distribution of intellectual property through the licensing, regulation, and monitoring of radio, television, telephones, and the ‘net. A printed book, though, is a silent expression of freedom. Reading a printed book is an activity that cannot easily be monitored. A book on one’s own shelves cannot be rewritten by a government agency’s computer technicians overnight.
But a book is not completely safe – it can be lost, burned, stolen, or seized. Nor are you safe. Someone in our government has found a way to threaten your freedom to read not by crudely banning books outright but by promoting a bogus health issue: who but a cad could possibly be against safeguarding the safety of children? Thus the book is not demonized, but rather the possibility of content of lead in the type, and by extension he who owns the book. To expose a child to a book thus becomes a crime.
To tyrants, buying your child an old book full of stories of heroes is a criminal act. In truth, giving your child that book makes you a real hero yourself.
Just be careful to look over your shoulder.
“I mean they’ve erased our history and are rewriting what remains…whole zones of literature are now forbidden and are disappearing from libraries.”
-- Antun to Josip re Tito’s Yugoslavia in Michael O’Brien’s The Island of the World
-30-
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Cargo Cult
Mack Hall
A wise man of my acquaintance speaks the truest words I have ever heard about materialism: “It’s only stuff.”
My usual rejoinder is “I like my stuff!”
But he is right. As the anonymous author of “The Seafarer” said some 1500 years ago, the wealth of the world neither goes with us when we die nor does it remain. One’s car, pocketknife, fountain pen, watch, boat, tractor, Brickberry – all will eventually be sold, stolen, rusted, rotted, recycled, or simply lost in the passage of the centuries.
Even so, while one is here on earth a reasonable amount of stuff is good: a nice coat, a radio, plumbing, sensible shoes, a glass of iced tea, a bed, a roof, a good book.
Modern economies are based on the exchange of work, goods, and services, but right now all that seems to have slowed mightily. We are not selling enough hamburgers, insurance, and lawsuits these days.
Japan is in bad shape too, and Panasonic Corporation is demanding that all its employees help Panasonic by buying lots of Panasonic stuff with their paychecks. You make it, you buy it.
If all organizations followed Panasonic’s closed-loop scheme, here are the possibilities:
“Cowboys, ya done a good job in herdin’ these longhorns from Texas to Abilene, fightin’ drought, wolves, Apaches, rustlers, and that satanic bread truck near Waco. 3,000 head o’ cows, and ya got 2,500 through. Now buy them.”
“Hey, Fred, great work in rebuilding those three carburetors today. Now the company executives expect you to do your duty and buy these three carbs plus the one that Bob didn’t finish. At wholesale, natch.”
“Nurse Aide Smith, you are one good caregiver, a true Flo Nightingale. We appreciate you, and the patients appreciate you. In exchange for your paycheck we demand that you take two hundred used bedpans home to your family.”
“Spuds, you are a great short-order cook, and you’ve worked here at Awful House for years. Tell ya what – instead of paying you this week we’re gonna let you eat all you want of the customer leftovers, okay? Do it for the company that loves you so much.”
"Wanda Fay, you have been a great asset here at the newspaper for over twenty years, but we’re having some rough times and are going to have to let you go. We can't give you severance pay, so we’re going to let you have today’s entire press run of 150,000 copies of the newspaper you helped make great. Good bye, and good luck.”
“Corporal Steele, you saved Fort Spitcup from being overrun by wave after wave of screaming terrorists armed with AK47s, AK48s, and suicide underpants through your expert command of your platoon after Sergeant Ironguts was killed in action. In recognition of your bravery and professionalism, and in lieu of treatment or VA benefits for the arm you lost in combat, we’re going to give you all the dead bodies. A grateful nation thanks you.”
“Employees of the sewage plant: as you know, the city is having a cash-flow problem…”
A wise man of my acquaintance speaks the truest words I have ever heard about materialism: “It’s only stuff.”
My usual rejoinder is “I like my stuff!”
But he is right. As the anonymous author of “The Seafarer” said some 1500 years ago, the wealth of the world neither goes with us when we die nor does it remain. One’s car, pocketknife, fountain pen, watch, boat, tractor, Brickberry – all will eventually be sold, stolen, rusted, rotted, recycled, or simply lost in the passage of the centuries.
Even so, while one is here on earth a reasonable amount of stuff is good: a nice coat, a radio, plumbing, sensible shoes, a glass of iced tea, a bed, a roof, a good book.
Modern economies are based on the exchange of work, goods, and services, but right now all that seems to have slowed mightily. We are not selling enough hamburgers, insurance, and lawsuits these days.
Japan is in bad shape too, and Panasonic Corporation is demanding that all its employees help Panasonic by buying lots of Panasonic stuff with their paychecks. You make it, you buy it.
If all organizations followed Panasonic’s closed-loop scheme, here are the possibilities:
“Cowboys, ya done a good job in herdin’ these longhorns from Texas to Abilene, fightin’ drought, wolves, Apaches, rustlers, and that satanic bread truck near Waco. 3,000 head o’ cows, and ya got 2,500 through. Now buy them.”
“Hey, Fred, great work in rebuilding those three carburetors today. Now the company executives expect you to do your duty and buy these three carbs plus the one that Bob didn’t finish. At wholesale, natch.”
“Nurse Aide Smith, you are one good caregiver, a true Flo Nightingale. We appreciate you, and the patients appreciate you. In exchange for your paycheck we demand that you take two hundred used bedpans home to your family.”
“Spuds, you are a great short-order cook, and you’ve worked here at Awful House for years. Tell ya what – instead of paying you this week we’re gonna let you eat all you want of the customer leftovers, okay? Do it for the company that loves you so much.”
"Wanda Fay, you have been a great asset here at the newspaper for over twenty years, but we’re having some rough times and are going to have to let you go. We can't give you severance pay, so we’re going to let you have today’s entire press run of 150,000 copies of the newspaper you helped make great. Good bye, and good luck.”
“Corporal Steele, you saved Fort Spitcup from being overrun by wave after wave of screaming terrorists armed with AK47s, AK48s, and suicide underpants through your expert command of your platoon after Sergeant Ironguts was killed in action. In recognition of your bravery and professionalism, and in lieu of treatment or VA benefits for the arm you lost in combat, we’re going to give you all the dead bodies. A grateful nation thanks you.”
“Employees of the sewage plant: as you know, the city is having a cash-flow problem…”
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Stimulus Package
Mack Hall
The financial depression is getting so bad that day and night I see poor people on three-wheelers fleeing poverty in terror along my road. Yep, rattle-trap old three-wheelers all day long, with mattresses and chickens and Grandma piled on, headed to California.
But I’m okay; I got my stimulus packages, two of ‘em, the other day: DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico, Hecho en China. Someday I will thrill my grandchildren with yarns about the Not-So-Great Depression: “Boy, we was so pore we had only two television sets, and they was analog at that! Thank God for the federal government who came to our rescue with two Convertido Analogicos! I just don’t think we would have made it through the terrible winter of ‘08-’09 without ‘em.”
Rosie the Riveter will be updated to Rosie the DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China Installer. The iconic poster will show Rosie flexing her cell ‘phone and crying “My boss is a sexist meanie!”
Installing a DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China will soon be a WPA job, with four supervisors watching one installer do the work.
Standing along the streets the newly unemployed will hold up signs that read “Will Install Your DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China For Food.”
As hospitals wrecked by Hurricane Ike finally have to close forever, patients dying in the weedy parking lots will each be comforted by a brand-new DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China.
As the economy collapses, once-respectable women will stand on street corners smoking cigarettes and whispering, “Hey, mister, want a good DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China tonight?”
An Olympic gold medallist will be photographed smoking something grassy through a DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China.
Women with serious pyschosexual issues will take off their clothes to protest global warming caused by the use of DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas.
The Pentagon will pay $4,000 for each DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will demand a DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China for each of her offices and houses, and a gold-plated one for her government jet.
Members of The Bright Light Free Will Foursquare Three-and-a-Half Gospels Missionary Temple Fellowship of The Something-or-Other under the The Reverend Doctor Brother Bishop Billy will gather on rooftops at midnight on Ground Squirrel Day trying to receive messages from the Mother Ship on their DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas.
Congress will subpoena tobacco executives to grill them about why teenagers are smoking DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas.
Old people will yarn that “In my day we didn’t need a DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China; we sat around watching rocks, and by golly we were glad to have an extra rock for Christmas. We didn’t have DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas, but we had love, and if we didn’t have love my ol’ daddy’d take a razor strap to my heinie and I grew up just fine, so you know what you kids can do with your fancy DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas that you think you got to have.”
In the Khyber Pass an outnumbered, outgunned American patrol, surrounded by extremist Methodists, will radio its last, defiant message: “Send us more DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas!”
War? Depression? Hurricanes? Homelessness? Foreclosures? Unemployment? Republicans lurking under the bed? Stand tall, America; with our DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas we can tackle anything!
The financial depression is getting so bad that day and night I see poor people on three-wheelers fleeing poverty in terror along my road. Yep, rattle-trap old three-wheelers all day long, with mattresses and chickens and Grandma piled on, headed to California.
But I’m okay; I got my stimulus packages, two of ‘em, the other day: DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico, Hecho en China. Someday I will thrill my grandchildren with yarns about the Not-So-Great Depression: “Boy, we was so pore we had only two television sets, and they was analog at that! Thank God for the federal government who came to our rescue with two Convertido Analogicos! I just don’t think we would have made it through the terrible winter of ‘08-’09 without ‘em.”
Rosie the Riveter will be updated to Rosie the DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China Installer. The iconic poster will show Rosie flexing her cell ‘phone and crying “My boss is a sexist meanie!”
Installing a DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China will soon be a WPA job, with four supervisors watching one installer do the work.
Standing along the streets the newly unemployed will hold up signs that read “Will Install Your DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China For Food.”
As hospitals wrecked by Hurricane Ike finally have to close forever, patients dying in the weedy parking lots will each be comforted by a brand-new DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China.
As the economy collapses, once-respectable women will stand on street corners smoking cigarettes and whispering, “Hey, mister, want a good DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China tonight?”
An Olympic gold medallist will be photographed smoking something grassy through a DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China.
Women with serious pyschosexual issues will take off their clothes to protest global warming caused by the use of DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas.
The Pentagon will pay $4,000 for each DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will demand a DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China for each of her offices and houses, and a gold-plated one for her government jet.
Members of The Bright Light Free Will Foursquare Three-and-a-Half Gospels Missionary Temple Fellowship of The Something-or-Other under the The Reverend Doctor Brother Bishop Billy will gather on rooftops at midnight on Ground Squirrel Day trying to receive messages from the Mother Ship on their DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas.
Congress will subpoena tobacco executives to grill them about why teenagers are smoking DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas.
Old people will yarn that “In my day we didn’t need a DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en China; we sat around watching rocks, and by golly we were glad to have an extra rock for Christmas. We didn’t have DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas, but we had love, and if we didn’t have love my ol’ daddy’d take a razor strap to my heinie and I grew up just fine, so you know what you kids can do with your fancy DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas that you think you got to have.”
In the Khyber Pass an outnumbered, outgunned American patrol, surrounded by extremist Methodists, will radio its last, defiant message: “Send us more DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas!”
War? Depression? Hurricanes? Homelessness? Foreclosures? Unemployment? Republicans lurking under the bed? Stand tall, America; with our DTV Digital a Convertidor Analogico Hecho en Chinas we can tackle anything!
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Irrelevant -- a Poem
Mack Hall
Irrelevant
For Tod
How wonderful to be irrelevant:
An old car rusting in sere autumn weeds,
An unheard voice no longer pertinent,
A silent solitary bidding his beads.
In youth one roams the glades with Robin Hood,
Sails dream-ships far beyond the classroom wall,
Dances with fairies in a moonlit wood,
Gives homage to our King in Arthur’s hall.
A man, alas, drags Dante’s darksome dreams
Through corridors haunted with smoke and mist,
Where truth is bought and sold by mad regimes,
And lies are given a sly, sensitive twist.
But, oh! Peace! To be nothing at the end,
Nunc dimittis, thou happiest of men!
Irrelevant
For Tod
How wonderful to be irrelevant:
An old car rusting in sere autumn weeds,
An unheard voice no longer pertinent,
A silent solitary bidding his beads.
In youth one roams the glades with Robin Hood,
Sails dream-ships far beyond the classroom wall,
Dances with fairies in a moonlit wood,
Gives homage to our King in Arthur’s hall.
A man, alas, drags Dante’s darksome dreams
Through corridors haunted with smoke and mist,
Where truth is bought and sold by mad regimes,
And lies are given a sly, sensitive twist.
But, oh! Peace! To be nothing at the end,
Nunc dimittis, thou happiest of men!
100 Things to Ignore Before You Die
Mack Hall
A recent visit to the book store reveals that there are only about two kinds of books for sale just now: those with pictures of the President on the cover and those telling you of 100 movies, songs, places, meals, adventures you must see, hear, visit, eat, or experience before you die.
Just what death has to do with any given 100 experience eludes the thoughtful person. You see Plan Nine From Outer Space because you want to laugh at a cheesy film with pie plates doubling as flying saucers, not because your physician has given you a thumbs-down. You listen to Wagner because of some atavistic impulse to listen to people yelling at each other in German with Nibelungsomethings beating on kettledrums in the background. You eat a taco because you’re hungry. You jump out of an airplane because against all logic you really, really feel that some cloth and a few lengths of string will keep you from terminal planet-hugging.
Life should be lived on one’s own terms, as far as is possible (God seems to have His own plans in the matter), not on some other human’s schedule. Perhaps part of the scheme is not doing all that other people tell you. Following are some things that can well be ignored in living a meaningful life:
1. Numerology, horoscopes, and global warming
2. Art that must be explained
3. Poetry that doesn’t scan
4. Bottled water
5. Batman movies
6. Coffee with adjectives
7. National Public Radio on Saturday morning
8. That quiet young man who collects Nazi memorabilia
9. Activists
10. 1968
11. Fat-free potato chips
12. Newark, New Jersey
13. Wedding receptions
14. Golf-as-life metaphors
15. Meeting
16. Movie remakes
17. Afghanistan
18. Margarine
19. Eateries that serve margarine
20. Holding hands with total strangers in church
21. Cell ‘phones
22. Sea salt
23. Air Canada
24. Belgium
25. Lists!
A recent visit to the book store reveals that there are only about two kinds of books for sale just now: those with pictures of the President on the cover and those telling you of 100 movies, songs, places, meals, adventures you must see, hear, visit, eat, or experience before you die.
Just what death has to do with any given 100 experience eludes the thoughtful person. You see Plan Nine From Outer Space because you want to laugh at a cheesy film with pie plates doubling as flying saucers, not because your physician has given you a thumbs-down. You listen to Wagner because of some atavistic impulse to listen to people yelling at each other in German with Nibelungsomethings beating on kettledrums in the background. You eat a taco because you’re hungry. You jump out of an airplane because against all logic you really, really feel that some cloth and a few lengths of string will keep you from terminal planet-hugging.
Life should be lived on one’s own terms, as far as is possible (God seems to have His own plans in the matter), not on some other human’s schedule. Perhaps part of the scheme is not doing all that other people tell you. Following are some things that can well be ignored in living a meaningful life:
1. Numerology, horoscopes, and global warming
2. Art that must be explained
3. Poetry that doesn’t scan
4. Bottled water
5. Batman movies
6. Coffee with adjectives
7. National Public Radio on Saturday morning
8. That quiet young man who collects Nazi memorabilia
9. Activists
10. 1968
11. Fat-free potato chips
12. Newark, New Jersey
13. Wedding receptions
14. Golf-as-life metaphors
15. Meeting
16. Movie remakes
17. Afghanistan
18. Margarine
19. Eateries that serve margarine
20. Holding hands with total strangers in church
21. Cell ‘phones
22. Sea salt
23. Air Canada
24. Belgium
25. Lists!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Thoughts of Chairman Mack
Mack Hall
In the 1960s the obedient paraded up and down the streets of China waving Mao’s Little Red Book and killing people. Among Chairman Mao’s sayings was “Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” If so, then muggers are not muggers; they’re Jeffersonian democrats re-interpreting the Constitution as a living document to be redefined every generation mwamwamwa…mwa…mwamwamwawawa.
And speaking of the Constitution, one reads of lawyers who carry pocket copies of that venerable document as a reminder of the secondary source of law in this nation.
Christians have been known to carry copies of the Bible (known as “MY Bible”) around, though these are more often left on car dashboards or camouflaged in embroidered covers along with arsenals of multi-colored hi-lighters.
Whether or not girls will be making pillows of the Thoughts of Chairman Obama has yet to be determined, but the book is now for sale to all the faithful. You can now replace pocket editions of Mao, the Constitution, and the Bible with the wisdom of the President who has been President for a week or so.
Yes, The History Company (www.historycompany.com) offers a little blue booklet called Pocket Obama at $49.50 for ten copies (Thanks to newsbusters.org for the heads up). The fulsome advertisement compares President Obama favorably to President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but does not offer a Pocket Kennedy or a Pocket King. I suppose this is because after a while one runs out of pockets. The cell ‘phone, the water bottle, the MePod, the BrickBerry, and Pocket Obama must take precedence.
And Pocket Obama will definitely take precedence, because www.historycompany.com commands very precisely that “It is an unofficial requirement for every citizen to own, to read, and to carry this book at all times.” Hey, I am not making this up. What is not clear is the distinction between an official requirement and an unofficial requirement, what the sanctions are for not meeting the requirement, and just who is making the requirement. As Number 2 says in The Prisoner, “That would be telling.”
Maybe the guards / counselors / therapists at Guantanamo will start giving free copies to prisoners.
You might want to hurry and buy your copy of Pocket Obama; it will go well with your Chuck and Di mugs, your Pat Paulsen for President button, your Circuit City and Linens ‘N’ Things discount cards, your love beads, your mood ring, and your lava lamp.
But I must leave off now and go weep copious tears before my Ronald Reagan poster.
In the 1960s the obedient paraded up and down the streets of China waving Mao’s Little Red Book and killing people. Among Chairman Mao’s sayings was “Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” If so, then muggers are not muggers; they’re Jeffersonian democrats re-interpreting the Constitution as a living document to be redefined every generation mwamwamwa…mwa…mwamwamwawawa.
And speaking of the Constitution, one reads of lawyers who carry pocket copies of that venerable document as a reminder of the secondary source of law in this nation.
Christians have been known to carry copies of the Bible (known as “MY Bible”) around, though these are more often left on car dashboards or camouflaged in embroidered covers along with arsenals of multi-colored hi-lighters.
Whether or not girls will be making pillows of the Thoughts of Chairman Obama has yet to be determined, but the book is now for sale to all the faithful. You can now replace pocket editions of Mao, the Constitution, and the Bible with the wisdom of the President who has been President for a week or so.
Yes, The History Company (www.historycompany.com) offers a little blue booklet called Pocket Obama at $49.50 for ten copies (Thanks to newsbusters.org for the heads up). The fulsome advertisement compares President Obama favorably to President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but does not offer a Pocket Kennedy or a Pocket King. I suppose this is because after a while one runs out of pockets. The cell ‘phone, the water bottle, the MePod, the BrickBerry, and Pocket Obama must take precedence.
And Pocket Obama will definitely take precedence, because www.historycompany.com commands very precisely that “It is an unofficial requirement for every citizen to own, to read, and to carry this book at all times.” Hey, I am not making this up. What is not clear is the distinction between an official requirement and an unofficial requirement, what the sanctions are for not meeting the requirement, and just who is making the requirement. As Number 2 says in The Prisoner, “That would be telling.”
Maybe the guards / counselors / therapists at Guantanamo will start giving free copies to prisoners.
You might want to hurry and buy your copy of Pocket Obama; it will go well with your Chuck and Di mugs, your Pat Paulsen for President button, your Circuit City and Linens ‘N’ Things discount cards, your love beads, your mood ring, and your lava lamp.
But I must leave off now and go weep copious tears before my Ronald Reagan poster.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Kirbyville Elementary 2nd Grade, 1955-1956
Kirbyville Elementary School
2nd Grade, 1955-1956
Photo by D. T. Kent Jr. of happy memory
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Prisoner
Mack Hall
By the time we finish with him, he won't know whether he's Number 6 or the cube root of infinity.
-- Number 2 in The Prisoner
Once again America has changed governments without any violence other than the occasional storming of a parade-route porta-potty by unrestrained hordes of liberal arts majors who had to let their magna grande cups of lattepuccinis go. A young man who was raised in a little log cabin in Hawaii now lives at the ritziest address this side of Buckingham Palace, and America goes on and on. How do you like them apples, General Lord Cornwallis?
President Obama will now wake up every morning for the next four years realizing that he, and he alone, must in the name of the Land of the Free face unspeakable horrors that would cower a lesser man, said horrors being Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
On the occasion of an inauguration it is a custom for almost everyone within reach of a keyboard to tap out an open letter telling the new President how to run the nation. It is a custom of the new President to ignore said open letters because, after all, he got elected and the rest of us didn’t.
Even so, I will now exercise my First Amendment right to be unread.
Dear President Obama:
Avoid the exotic foo-foo pooches; get a nice brace of beagles for the kids. Don’t do a Lyndon Johnson and pick ‘em up by the ears.
Keep your Blackberry. Don’t let people push you around about that.
If you keep channeling Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden’s going to start thinking more and more about how to call in the boys in the white coats.
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State – what were you thinking? I got two words for ya: Lady Macbeth. Watch out for floating cutlery.
Could you please make Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton co-ambassadors to Estonia, and then accidentally forget to budget return tickets?
I’ve always wondered – is the Surgeon General a real general?
Get out into the country often. Walk in the woods in all seasons. Go fishing. Go hunting. Sit around a campfire and smoke cigars and enjoy a little of Scotland’s one gift to civilization with some guys who don’t wear suits.
About Vladimir Putin -- anyone who looks so much like Dobbie-the-House-Elf is not be trusted.
I love the new wheels. Is the engine a hybrid?
Telephone Rush Limbaugh and ask him if he’s registered to vote.
You do know that global warming is a fraud, right? Always remember that big coat you wore for your inauguration.
Don’t even imagine that you are The One to the guy who had to clean out those 5,000 one-holers.
You are now The Man. Be The Man. Be General Patton, not Doctor Phil. A great nation requires a great leader, not a therapist. You are now the Commander-in-Chief, not a Chicago politician.
Don’t be a prisoner of the closed Byzantine rigidity of the insider sub-culture. Don’t believe what your briefcase-carriers tell you. Listen outside The Village.
Be seeing you!
By the time we finish with him, he won't know whether he's Number 6 or the cube root of infinity.
-- Number 2 in The Prisoner
Once again America has changed governments without any violence other than the occasional storming of a parade-route porta-potty by unrestrained hordes of liberal arts majors who had to let their magna grande cups of lattepuccinis go. A young man who was raised in a little log cabin in Hawaii now lives at the ritziest address this side of Buckingham Palace, and America goes on and on. How do you like them apples, General Lord Cornwallis?
President Obama will now wake up every morning for the next four years realizing that he, and he alone, must in the name of the Land of the Free face unspeakable horrors that would cower a lesser man, said horrors being Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
On the occasion of an inauguration it is a custom for almost everyone within reach of a keyboard to tap out an open letter telling the new President how to run the nation. It is a custom of the new President to ignore said open letters because, after all, he got elected and the rest of us didn’t.
Even so, I will now exercise my First Amendment right to be unread.
Dear President Obama:
Avoid the exotic foo-foo pooches; get a nice brace of beagles for the kids. Don’t do a Lyndon Johnson and pick ‘em up by the ears.
Keep your Blackberry. Don’t let people push you around about that.
If you keep channeling Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden’s going to start thinking more and more about how to call in the boys in the white coats.
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State – what were you thinking? I got two words for ya: Lady Macbeth. Watch out for floating cutlery.
Could you please make Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton co-ambassadors to Estonia, and then accidentally forget to budget return tickets?
I’ve always wondered – is the Surgeon General a real general?
Get out into the country often. Walk in the woods in all seasons. Go fishing. Go hunting. Sit around a campfire and smoke cigars and enjoy a little of Scotland’s one gift to civilization with some guys who don’t wear suits.
About Vladimir Putin -- anyone who looks so much like Dobbie-the-House-Elf is not be trusted.
I love the new wheels. Is the engine a hybrid?
Telephone Rush Limbaugh and ask him if he’s registered to vote.
You do know that global warming is a fraud, right? Always remember that big coat you wore for your inauguration.
Don’t even imagine that you are The One to the guy who had to clean out those 5,000 one-holers.
You are now The Man. Be The Man. Be General Patton, not Doctor Phil. A great nation requires a great leader, not a therapist. You are now the Commander-in-Chief, not a Chicago politician.
Don’t be a prisoner of the closed Byzantine rigidity of the insider sub-culture. Don’t believe what your briefcase-carriers tell you. Listen outside The Village.
Be seeing you!
The Prisoner
Mack Hall
By the time we finish with him, he won't know whether he's Number 6 or the cube root of infinity.
-- Number 2 in The Prisoner
Once again America has changed governments without any violence other than the occasional storming of a parade-route porta-potty by unrestrained hordes of liberal arts majors who had to let their magna grande cups of lattepuccinis go. A young man who was raised in a little log cabin in Hawaii now lives at the ritziest address this side of Buckingham Palace, and America goes on and on. How do you like them apples, General Lord Cornwallis?
President Obama will now wake up every morning for the next four years realizing that he, and he alone, must in the name of the Land of the Free face unspeakable horrors that would cower a lesser man, said horrors being Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
On the occasion of an inauguration it is a custom for almost everyone within reach of a keyboard to tap out an open letter telling the new President how to run the nation. It is a custom of the new President to ignore said open letters because, after all, he got elected and the rest of us didn’t.
Even so, I will now exercise my First Amendment right to be unread.
Dear President Obama:
Avoid the exotic foo-foo pooches; get a nice brace of beagles for the kids. Don’t do a Lyndon Johnson and pick ‘em up by the ears.
Keep your Blackberry. Don’t let people push you around about that.
If you keep channeling Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden’s going to start thinking more and more about how to call in the boys in the white coats.
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State – what were you thinking? I got two words for ya: Lady Macbeth. Watch out for floating cutlery.
Could you please make Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton co-ambassadors to Estonia, and then accidentally forget to budget return tickets?
I’ve always wondered – is the Surgeon General a real general?
Get out into the country often. Walk in the woods in all seasons. Go fishing. Go hunting. Sit around a campfire and smoke cigars and enjoy a little of Scotland’s one gift to civilization with some guys who don’t wear suits.
About Vladimir Putin -- anyone who looks so much like Dobbie-the-House-Elf is not be trusted.
I love the new wheels. Is the engine a hybrid?
Telephone Rush Limbaugh and ask him if he’s registered to vote.
You do know that global warming is a fraud, right? Always remember that big coat you wore for your inauguration.
Don’t even imagine that you are The One to the guy who had to clean out those 5,000 one-holers.
You are now The Man. Be The Man. Be General Patton, not Doctor Phil. A great nation requires a great leader, not a therapist. You are now the Commander-in-Chief, not a Chicago politician.
Don’t be a prisoner of the closed Byzantine rigidity of the insider sub-culture. Don’t believe what your briefcase-carriers tell you. Listen outside The Village.
Be seeing you!
By the time we finish with him, he won't know whether he's Number 6 or the cube root of infinity.
-- Number 2 in The Prisoner
Once again America has changed governments without any violence other than the occasional storming of a parade-route porta-potty by unrestrained hordes of liberal arts majors who had to let their magna grande cups of lattepuccinis go. A young man who was raised in a little log cabin in Hawaii now lives at the ritziest address this side of Buckingham Palace, and America goes on and on. How do you like them apples, General Lord Cornwallis?
President Obama will now wake up every morning for the next four years realizing that he, and he alone, must in the name of the Land of the Free face unspeakable horrors that would cower a lesser man, said horrors being Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
On the occasion of an inauguration it is a custom for almost everyone within reach of a keyboard to tap out an open letter telling the new President how to run the nation. It is a custom of the new President to ignore said open letters because, after all, he got elected and the rest of us didn’t.
Even so, I will now exercise my First Amendment right to be unread.
Dear President Obama:
Avoid the exotic foo-foo pooches; get a nice brace of beagles for the kids. Don’t do a Lyndon Johnson and pick ‘em up by the ears.
Keep your Blackberry. Don’t let people push you around about that.
If you keep channeling Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden’s going to start thinking more and more about how to call in the boys in the white coats.
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State – what were you thinking? I got two words for ya: Lady Macbeth. Watch out for floating cutlery.
Could you please make Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton co-ambassadors to Estonia, and then accidentally forget to budget return tickets?
I’ve always wondered – is the Surgeon General a real general?
Get out into the country often. Walk in the woods in all seasons. Go fishing. Go hunting. Sit around a campfire and smoke cigars and enjoy a little of Scotland’s one gift to civilization with some guys who don’t wear suits.
About Vladimir Putin -- anyone who looks so much like Dobbie-the-House-Elf is not be trusted.
I love the new wheels. Is the engine a hybrid?
Telephone Rush Limbaugh and ask him if he’s registered to vote.
You do know that global warming is a fraud, right? Always remember that big coat you wore for your inauguration.
Don’t even imagine that you are The One to the guy who had to clean out those 5,000 one-holers.
You are now The Man. Be The Man. Be General Patton, not Doctor Phil. A great nation requires a great leader, not a therapist. You are now the Commander-in-Chief, not a Chicago politician.
Don’t be a prisoner of the closed Byzantine rigidity of the insider sub-culture. Don’t believe what your briefcase-carriers tell you. Listen outside The Village.
Be seeing you!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Russians in Moc Hoa
I read lots of Russian lit (in translation, of course) while in Viet-Nam:
Mack Hall
Russians in Moc Hoa
I understood poor, young Raskolnikov
And read all I found by Anton Chekhov
Remembered nothing about Bulgakhov
Heard naughty whispers about Nabokov
Thrilled to the Cossacks in old Sholokov
But then learned the sound of Kalashnikov –
This, I decided, is where I get off!
Mack Hall
Russians in Moc Hoa
I understood poor, young Raskolnikov
And read all I found by Anton Chekhov
Remembered nothing about Bulgakhov
Heard naughty whispers about Nabokov
Thrilled to the Cossacks in old Sholokov
But then learned the sound of Kalashnikov –
This, I decided, is where I get off!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Errol Flynn They Ain't
Mack Hall
Along the Horn of Africa some of the local folks have adopted the core financial policy of our American Congress – use force to take money away from people who work. With the reduction of the British Navy to little more than dinner cruises on the Thames, pirates once again find the high seas free of law and the orderly hanging of buccaneers. Piracy has become so common that it has significantly driven the prices of everything from gasoline to Chinese coffee makers.
In November a pirate band (almost always prefaced in the news with the meaningless adjective “rag-tag.” What, really, is a rag-tag?) seized a Saudi tanker, the MV Sirius Star, and held it and the crew hostage. The Somali pirates lived aboard the ship for two months, possibly idling away the hours watching The Sea Hawk and The Pirate Movie.
Last week someone, apparently the dollar-rich Saudis, paid the Somali pirates some three million dollars to make nice and go away.
These pirates weren’t Errol Flynn, though. Erroll Flynn as Captain Blood would have seized the tanker, fitted it with cannons, pushed Basil Rathbone over the side, wooed and won the fair Olivia deHavilland, and sailed up the Thames to be knighted by Queen Flora Robson, all while his muscular, musical, merry men saucily sang sea chanties.
The Somali pirates (maybe with a yo-ho-ho, but with no bottle of rum), not being Errol Flynns, took to the jolly boats with their ill-gotten gains and chests of cliches’, and made for shore. One boat capsized in a storm, drowning some five yo-hoing pirates and dropping the loot into Dhimmi Jones’ locker. Three survivors made it to shore without any of the ransom, and the Pirate King is going to be very, very unhappy with them.
Captain Jeffrey Thorpe would never have let this happen.
Thousands in Europe will protest Bush / CIA / Vatican / Jewish / Masonic manipulation of weather through global warming that targets and oppresses pirates. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Rumor has it that Rick Warren will give the benediction at the pirates’ funerals. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
In response to the upsurge in piracy the United Nations will propose an international law mandating imprisonment for anyone calling pirates pirates; in future pirates must be referred to as undocumented revenue collectors. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Citing Vatican II, American bishops will institute an Undocumented Revenue Collectors’ Sunday with a second collection at all masses for sensitivity training. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
The United States Navy will be required to apologize if the presence of any American warship alarms Somali pirates, causing them emotional stress, lack of sleep, and loss of potential earnings. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Congress will pass an extra gasoline tax to fund law school scholarships for the orphans of Somali pirates. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
For the near future, perhaps Somali pirates should watch more Errol Flynn movies so they can learn a little seamanship.
Along the Horn of Africa some of the local folks have adopted the core financial policy of our American Congress – use force to take money away from people who work. With the reduction of the British Navy to little more than dinner cruises on the Thames, pirates once again find the high seas free of law and the orderly hanging of buccaneers. Piracy has become so common that it has significantly driven the prices of everything from gasoline to Chinese coffee makers.
In November a pirate band (almost always prefaced in the news with the meaningless adjective “rag-tag.” What, really, is a rag-tag?) seized a Saudi tanker, the MV Sirius Star, and held it and the crew hostage. The Somali pirates lived aboard the ship for two months, possibly idling away the hours watching The Sea Hawk and The Pirate Movie.
Last week someone, apparently the dollar-rich Saudis, paid the Somali pirates some three million dollars to make nice and go away.
These pirates weren’t Errol Flynn, though. Erroll Flynn as Captain Blood would have seized the tanker, fitted it with cannons, pushed Basil Rathbone over the side, wooed and won the fair Olivia deHavilland, and sailed up the Thames to be knighted by Queen Flora Robson, all while his muscular, musical, merry men saucily sang sea chanties.
The Somali pirates (maybe with a yo-ho-ho, but with no bottle of rum), not being Errol Flynns, took to the jolly boats with their ill-gotten gains and chests of cliches’, and made for shore. One boat capsized in a storm, drowning some five yo-hoing pirates and dropping the loot into Dhimmi Jones’ locker. Three survivors made it to shore without any of the ransom, and the Pirate King is going to be very, very unhappy with them.
Captain Jeffrey Thorpe would never have let this happen.
Thousands in Europe will protest Bush / CIA / Vatican / Jewish / Masonic manipulation of weather through global warming that targets and oppresses pirates. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Rumor has it that Rick Warren will give the benediction at the pirates’ funerals. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
In response to the upsurge in piracy the United Nations will propose an international law mandating imprisonment for anyone calling pirates pirates; in future pirates must be referred to as undocumented revenue collectors. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Citing Vatican II, American bishops will institute an Undocumented Revenue Collectors’ Sunday with a second collection at all masses for sensitivity training. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
The United States Navy will be required to apologize if the presence of any American warship alarms Somali pirates, causing them emotional stress, lack of sleep, and loss of potential earnings. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Congress will pass an extra gasoline tax to fund law school scholarships for the orphans of Somali pirates. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
For the near future, perhaps Somali pirates should watch more Errol Flynn movies so they can learn a little seamanship.
Errol Flynn They Ain't
Mack Hall
Along the Horn of Africa some of the local folks have adopted the core financial policy of our American Congress – use force to take money away from people who work. With the reduction of the British Navy to little more than dinner cruises on the Thames, pirates once again find the high seas free of law and the orderly hanging of buccaneers. Piracy has become so common that it has significantly driven the prices of everything from gasoline to Chinese coffee makers.
In November a pirate band (almost always prefaced in the news with the meaningless adjective “rag-tag.” What, really, is a rag-tag?) seized a Saudi tanker, the MV Sirius Star, and held it and the crew hostage. The Somali pirates lived aboard the ship for two months, possibly idling away the hours watching The Sea Hawk and The Pirate Movie.
Last week someone, apparently the dollar-rich Saudis, paid the Somali pirates some three million dollars to make nice and go away.
These pirates weren’t Errol Flynn, though. Erroll Flynn as Captain Blood would have seized the tanker, fitted it with cannons, pushed Basil Rathbone over the side, wooed and won the fair Olivia deHavilland, and sailed up the Thames to be knighted by Queen Flora Robson, all while his muscular, musical, merry men saucily sang sea chanties.
The Somali pirates (maybe with a yo-ho-ho, but with no bottle of rum), not being Errol Flynns, took to the jolly boats with their ill-gotten gains and chests of cliches’, and made for shore. One boat capsized in a storm, drowning some five yo-hoing pirates and dropping the loot into Dhimmi Jones’ locker. Three survivors made it to shore without any of the ransom, and the Pirate King is going to be very, very unhappy with them.
Captain Jeffrey Thorpe would never have let this happen.
Thousands in Europe will protest Bush / CIA / Vatican / Jewish / Masonic manipulation of weather through global warming that targets and oppresses pirates. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Rumor has it that Rick Warren will give the benediction at the pirates’ funerals. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
In response to the upsurge in piracy the United Nations will propose an international law mandating imprisonment for anyone calling pirates pirates; in future pirates must be referred to as undocumented revenue collectors. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Citing Vatican II, American bishops will institute an Undocumented Revenue Collectors’ Sunday with a second collection at all masses for sensitivity training. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
The United States Navy will be required to apologize if the presence of any American warship alarms Somali pirates, causing them emotional stress, lack of sleep, and loss of potential earnings. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Congress will pass an extra gasoline tax to fund law school scholarships for the orphans of Somali pirates. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
For the near future, perhaps Somali pirates should watch more Errol Flynn movies so they can learn a little seamanship.
Along the Horn of Africa some of the local folks have adopted the core financial policy of our American Congress – use force to take money away from people who work. With the reduction of the British Navy to little more than dinner cruises on the Thames, pirates once again find the high seas free of law and the orderly hanging of buccaneers. Piracy has become so common that it has significantly driven the prices of everything from gasoline to Chinese coffee makers.
In November a pirate band (almost always prefaced in the news with the meaningless adjective “rag-tag.” What, really, is a rag-tag?) seized a Saudi tanker, the MV Sirius Star, and held it and the crew hostage. The Somali pirates lived aboard the ship for two months, possibly idling away the hours watching The Sea Hawk and The Pirate Movie.
Last week someone, apparently the dollar-rich Saudis, paid the Somali pirates some three million dollars to make nice and go away.
These pirates weren’t Errol Flynn, though. Erroll Flynn as Captain Blood would have seized the tanker, fitted it with cannons, pushed Basil Rathbone over the side, wooed and won the fair Olivia deHavilland, and sailed up the Thames to be knighted by Queen Flora Robson, all while his muscular, musical, merry men saucily sang sea chanties.
The Somali pirates (maybe with a yo-ho-ho, but with no bottle of rum), not being Errol Flynns, took to the jolly boats with their ill-gotten gains and chests of cliches’, and made for shore. One boat capsized in a storm, drowning some five yo-hoing pirates and dropping the loot into Dhimmi Jones’ locker. Three survivors made it to shore without any of the ransom, and the Pirate King is going to be very, very unhappy with them.
Captain Jeffrey Thorpe would never have let this happen.
Thousands in Europe will protest Bush / CIA / Vatican / Jewish / Masonic manipulation of weather through global warming that targets and oppresses pirates. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Rumor has it that Rick Warren will give the benediction at the pirates’ funerals. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
In response to the upsurge in piracy the United Nations will propose an international law mandating imprisonment for anyone calling pirates pirates; in future pirates must be referred to as undocumented revenue collectors. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Citing Vatican II, American bishops will institute an Undocumented Revenue Collectors’ Sunday with a second collection at all masses for sensitivity training. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
The United States Navy will be required to apologize if the presence of any American warship alarms Somali pirates, causing them emotional stress, lack of sleep, and loss of potential earnings. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
Congress will pass an extra gasoline tax to fund law school scholarships for the orphans of Somali pirates. Palestinians will demonstrate and burn the Israeli flag.
For the near future, perhaps Somali pirates should watch more Errol Flynn movies so they can learn a little seamanship.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
A Man's Not Dressed Without His Pocket Knife
Mack Hall
This last Christmas certain environmentalist groups advertised meaningful green gifts – instead of giving your child a bicycle or a football for Christmas you could donate the money you would have spent on your own kid to some stranger who’s shown you a picture of a polar bear allegedly drowning.
It’s a polar bear, citizens; it swims in the water and eats harp seals, you know, the cute widdy-biddy harp seals with the big ol’ eyes. The polar bear rips screaming baby harp seals apart with its fangs and claws, and the baby harp seals die far more horribly than if they got whacked in the back of the head, and then they get eaten. How’s that for a bedtime story, PETA?
When I was a child there was nothing I would have wanted more than to stumble sleepily but excitedly into the living room to find a card (printed on recycled paper with recycled soy-based ink) giving me glad tidings that a penguin had the new cap pistol I wanted. Sadly, my parents weren’t green, and so gave me cap pistols and baseball gloves and toy trains and an ant farm.
Although not as exciting as a new bicycle, a good pocket knife is a far better gift than being bullied into pretending to feel good about a fish or a ground squirrel. Giving a boy his first pocket knife is a traditional rite of passage, and having it taken away a day or two later for misuse is another traditional rite of passage. A knife, after all, is a tool, not a toy, and owning one is a grown-up thing.
My ol’ daddy said that a man’s not fully dressed without his pocket knife; experience demonstrates that this is true. The knife was perhaps the first tool used by humans, probably beginning with a sharp flint, and necessary for skinning a rabbit, slicing veggies, building a fire, eating, building, mending, opening, slicing, dicing, picking your teeth, and cleaning your fingernails. Mind the order of usage, of course! No one who lives close to the land or the sea or the workshop can function without a good knife to hand at all times.
Thomas Jefferson is often credited for inventing the first folding knife, which, while not as strong as a one-piece, is certainly easier to carry about. Manufacturers began adding extra blades, and then the Swiss got the idea of adding specific tools in miniature, resulting in the Swiss Army Knife. Where or not the Swiss Army carries Swiss Army Knives is a good topic of conversation. While these gadgets are fun, I’ll bet your old grandpa could accomplish with his single-bladed pocket knife whatever task was necessary before you could find and unlimber the designated thingie out of a Swiss Army Knife or a multi-tool.
A friend gave me a nice little lock-back with a single blade with saw-teeth. I found this knife so useful that a few weeks later I bought a larger model, made-in-America, even while thinking to myself that the last thing I needed was another pocket knife. And then a few weeks after that Hurricane Rita did not hit New Orleans, and that big ol’ American knife with its one large blade and saw-teeth paid for itself many times over with its survival utility.
Shiny things under the tree or for a birthday are fun: little plastic boxes that light up and make noise, and other little boxes that allow you to hear The Immortal Words of Our Time – “Can you hear me now?” and “She all up in my face!” But when you are long-gone, your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will not treasure your MePod or your cell ‘phone or your Brickberry, because those dinky disposables will have long since been recycled into beer cans or Chinese cars. But they will treasure your old pocket knife, its edge well-worn from good, honest use and from many sharpenings around a winter’s fire when the stories are told.
Sturdy, American-made pocket knives are great, traditional gifts for men and boys. They are also perfect for skinning baby harp seals.
This last Christmas certain environmentalist groups advertised meaningful green gifts – instead of giving your child a bicycle or a football for Christmas you could donate the money you would have spent on your own kid to some stranger who’s shown you a picture of a polar bear allegedly drowning.
It’s a polar bear, citizens; it swims in the water and eats harp seals, you know, the cute widdy-biddy harp seals with the big ol’ eyes. The polar bear rips screaming baby harp seals apart with its fangs and claws, and the baby harp seals die far more horribly than if they got whacked in the back of the head, and then they get eaten. How’s that for a bedtime story, PETA?
When I was a child there was nothing I would have wanted more than to stumble sleepily but excitedly into the living room to find a card (printed on recycled paper with recycled soy-based ink) giving me glad tidings that a penguin had the new cap pistol I wanted. Sadly, my parents weren’t green, and so gave me cap pistols and baseball gloves and toy trains and an ant farm.
Although not as exciting as a new bicycle, a good pocket knife is a far better gift than being bullied into pretending to feel good about a fish or a ground squirrel. Giving a boy his first pocket knife is a traditional rite of passage, and having it taken away a day or two later for misuse is another traditional rite of passage. A knife, after all, is a tool, not a toy, and owning one is a grown-up thing.
My ol’ daddy said that a man’s not fully dressed without his pocket knife; experience demonstrates that this is true. The knife was perhaps the first tool used by humans, probably beginning with a sharp flint, and necessary for skinning a rabbit, slicing veggies, building a fire, eating, building, mending, opening, slicing, dicing, picking your teeth, and cleaning your fingernails. Mind the order of usage, of course! No one who lives close to the land or the sea or the workshop can function without a good knife to hand at all times.
Thomas Jefferson is often credited for inventing the first folding knife, which, while not as strong as a one-piece, is certainly easier to carry about. Manufacturers began adding extra blades, and then the Swiss got the idea of adding specific tools in miniature, resulting in the Swiss Army Knife. Where or not the Swiss Army carries Swiss Army Knives is a good topic of conversation. While these gadgets are fun, I’ll bet your old grandpa could accomplish with his single-bladed pocket knife whatever task was necessary before you could find and unlimber the designated thingie out of a Swiss Army Knife or a multi-tool.
A friend gave me a nice little lock-back with a single blade with saw-teeth. I found this knife so useful that a few weeks later I bought a larger model, made-in-America, even while thinking to myself that the last thing I needed was another pocket knife. And then a few weeks after that Hurricane Rita did not hit New Orleans, and that big ol’ American knife with its one large blade and saw-teeth paid for itself many times over with its survival utility.
Shiny things under the tree or for a birthday are fun: little plastic boxes that light up and make noise, and other little boxes that allow you to hear The Immortal Words of Our Time – “Can you hear me now?” and “She all up in my face!” But when you are long-gone, your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will not treasure your MePod or your cell ‘phone or your Brickberry, because those dinky disposables will have long since been recycled into beer cans or Chinese cars. But they will treasure your old pocket knife, its edge well-worn from good, honest use and from many sharpenings around a winter’s fire when the stories are told.
Sturdy, American-made pocket knives are great, traditional gifts for men and boys. They are also perfect for skinning baby harp seals.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
What if Governments Made New Year's Resolutions?
Mack Hall
India and Pakistan: Our two governments resolve to stand down all the border tension and work together in the new year so that we can get back to what we do best, persecuting Christians.
Congress: We’re going to stop bailing out rich people. CEOs who fly about in private jets should not be funded by firefighters and cops and store clerks. Further, the suits who rule the United Auto Workers need to find in their hearts the good will to sell their $33 million lake retreat and their $6 million golf course instead of demanding tax money from Americans who work for minimum wage.
Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg: In the new year I’m going to, like, you know, vote, and stuff. And disapprove of land mines.
President Bush: Clearly Americans should no longer fund any projects for oil-glutted Iraq; the purportedly poor Iraqis are throwing away perfectly good shoes. Instead of paying American engineers and skilled workers good money to rebuild Iraq, let us pay American engineers and skilled workers good money to rebuild America.
Al Gore: May all humans come to understand that global warming is a hoax promoted by bullies for reasons best known to themselves, and I apologize for having deluded myself. In the end, what we’re talking about is weather. Not that it means anything, but I’m going to stop flying around in my private jet and driving around in convoys of SUVs and preaching to people for big bucks.
Governor Perry: I’ve found out that I’m the only man in Texas who cares diddly about spending millions of dollars rebuilding the governor’s mansion. That old building looked too much like a set from Gone With the Wind anyway. I propose we sell the property for development, thus putting it on the tax rolls.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia: I’m going to have a lot fewer of my people’s heads cut off this year.
President Sarkozy of France: You know, my fellow monsieurs, if not for the Americans we’d all be native speakers of German. I think we should host a Thank-a-Yank day.
President Kohler of Germany: You know, mein Herren, if not for the Americans we’d have to rule the French! Ouch! I think we should host a Thank-a-Yank day.
China: Clearly the American government doesn’t care at all about the quality of the food and products we ship to the American people. As a matter of being good neighbors and in the absence of responsible American government we should build quality products and make sure the food we export isn’t poisoned.
Hamas: At some point someone’s going to ask why our Palestinian children are starving while we spend millions of donated dollars to buy rockets to fire into Israel. This year I propose we stop blaming Jews for everything and begin acting like a civilized state.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: I don’t need an expensive Air Force jet just to fly wherever I want to go; I’m going to be a positive role model in matters of thrift and fly commercial this year.
Governor Blagojevich of Illinois: I shouldn’t burden the people of Illinois with my confusion as to what planet I’m from. I’m also going to stop trying to sell public offices and be a responsible governor from now on – if that’s okay with my fraternity brothers and in accordance with Plan Nine From Outer Space.
President Putin of Russia: This year and forever, I am Plan Nine From Outer Space.
India and Pakistan: Our two governments resolve to stand down all the border tension and work together in the new year so that we can get back to what we do best, persecuting Christians.
Congress: We’re going to stop bailing out rich people. CEOs who fly about in private jets should not be funded by firefighters and cops and store clerks. Further, the suits who rule the United Auto Workers need to find in their hearts the good will to sell their $33 million lake retreat and their $6 million golf course instead of demanding tax money from Americans who work for minimum wage.
Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg: In the new year I’m going to, like, you know, vote, and stuff. And disapprove of land mines.
President Bush: Clearly Americans should no longer fund any projects for oil-glutted Iraq; the purportedly poor Iraqis are throwing away perfectly good shoes. Instead of paying American engineers and skilled workers good money to rebuild Iraq, let us pay American engineers and skilled workers good money to rebuild America.
Al Gore: May all humans come to understand that global warming is a hoax promoted by bullies for reasons best known to themselves, and I apologize for having deluded myself. In the end, what we’re talking about is weather. Not that it means anything, but I’m going to stop flying around in my private jet and driving around in convoys of SUVs and preaching to people for big bucks.
Governor Perry: I’ve found out that I’m the only man in Texas who cares diddly about spending millions of dollars rebuilding the governor’s mansion. That old building looked too much like a set from Gone With the Wind anyway. I propose we sell the property for development, thus putting it on the tax rolls.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia: I’m going to have a lot fewer of my people’s heads cut off this year.
President Sarkozy of France: You know, my fellow monsieurs, if not for the Americans we’d all be native speakers of German. I think we should host a Thank-a-Yank day.
President Kohler of Germany: You know, mein Herren, if not for the Americans we’d have to rule the French! Ouch! I think we should host a Thank-a-Yank day.
China: Clearly the American government doesn’t care at all about the quality of the food and products we ship to the American people. As a matter of being good neighbors and in the absence of responsible American government we should build quality products and make sure the food we export isn’t poisoned.
Hamas: At some point someone’s going to ask why our Palestinian children are starving while we spend millions of donated dollars to buy rockets to fire into Israel. This year I propose we stop blaming Jews for everything and begin acting like a civilized state.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: I don’t need an expensive Air Force jet just to fly wherever I want to go; I’m going to be a positive role model in matters of thrift and fly commercial this year.
Governor Blagojevich of Illinois: I shouldn’t burden the people of Illinois with my confusion as to what planet I’m from. I’m also going to stop trying to sell public offices and be a responsible governor from now on – if that’s okay with my fraternity brothers and in accordance with Plan Nine From Outer Space.
President Putin of Russia: This year and forever, I am Plan Nine From Outer Space.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
A Night of Watching
Mack Hall
Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child.
Holy Infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.
-- Mohr and Gruber, 1818
“Christmas…in all his bluff and hearty honesty” (Dickens, 1836) is near, and most of us will be blessed in celebrating this ancient Feast at home with our families, warm and under cover. We can attend a Christmas Eve liturgy and wrap gifts and sleep in earthly (at least) peace because a great many others will be on duty keeping us safe in the long watches of the night.
In the cold beneath the wild and snowy Hindu Kush and along the banks of rivers that Abraham knew, young Americans will be on patrol on Christmas Eve, keeping Osama Bin Ladin and his merry-less men too busy to shoot at the rest of us.
And in our own country, too, men and women will stand to and stand up on Christmas Eve: police, firefighters, utility crews, and medical staffs will count themselves blessed if they can take a few minutes for a cup of acrid, staff-room coffee on the night of the Savior’s birth.
Somewhere under the cold stars of Christmas Eve a cop will give a crying child a teddy bear and try to comfort him when his little world is made cruel by a drunk adult.
On this sacred night fire crews will roll because of a badly-wired tree or a flaming car wreck.
If the ice falling in the silent night takes down the electricity, our rural electric co-op crews will forsake their warm beds and take the trucks out in the sleet to spend cold hours making the rest of us warm again. If the Star of Christmas were to wink out (it won’t, of course), we can be sure that a Jasper-Newton Electric Co-Op truck would soon be rolling up with a crew to mend it.
EMT crews, driving ambulances pulled by eight huge cylinders rather than by eight tiny reindeer, will carry the gift of life on Christmas Eve. In the hospitals and nursing homes dedicated caregivers will be as the shepherds of long ago who came to the Stable when called, serving Christ in the long, long night by serving His people.
We are all called to lives of duty, not of privilege, and thank God for those who respond to that call better than the rest of us do. The Christmas of those who watch and serve in the night is especially holy. I hope they know that.
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
-- Longfellow, 1864
Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child.
Holy Infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.
-- Mohr and Gruber, 1818
“Christmas…in all his bluff and hearty honesty” (Dickens, 1836) is near, and most of us will be blessed in celebrating this ancient Feast at home with our families, warm and under cover. We can attend a Christmas Eve liturgy and wrap gifts and sleep in earthly (at least) peace because a great many others will be on duty keeping us safe in the long watches of the night.
In the cold beneath the wild and snowy Hindu Kush and along the banks of rivers that Abraham knew, young Americans will be on patrol on Christmas Eve, keeping Osama Bin Ladin and his merry-less men too busy to shoot at the rest of us.
And in our own country, too, men and women will stand to and stand up on Christmas Eve: police, firefighters, utility crews, and medical staffs will count themselves blessed if they can take a few minutes for a cup of acrid, staff-room coffee on the night of the Savior’s birth.
Somewhere under the cold stars of Christmas Eve a cop will give a crying child a teddy bear and try to comfort him when his little world is made cruel by a drunk adult.
On this sacred night fire crews will roll because of a badly-wired tree or a flaming car wreck.
If the ice falling in the silent night takes down the electricity, our rural electric co-op crews will forsake their warm beds and take the trucks out in the sleet to spend cold hours making the rest of us warm again. If the Star of Christmas were to wink out (it won’t, of course), we can be sure that a Jasper-Newton Electric Co-Op truck would soon be rolling up with a crew to mend it.
EMT crews, driving ambulances pulled by eight huge cylinders rather than by eight tiny reindeer, will carry the gift of life on Christmas Eve. In the hospitals and nursing homes dedicated caregivers will be as the shepherds of long ago who came to the Stable when called, serving Christ in the long, long night by serving His people.
We are all called to lives of duty, not of privilege, and thank God for those who respond to that call better than the rest of us do. The Christmas of those who watch and serve in the night is especially holy. I hope they know that.
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
-- Longfellow, 1864
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Football -- More Interesting Than a Nap
Mack Hall
For those of us gnashing our decaff lattas in the non-athletic darkness, football is only slightly more interesting than a nap, and on Sunday afternoon the nap definitely takes the gold. The basic thrust of the game – carrying an oddly-shaped leather ball across a boundary in the face, facemasks, and sometimes fists of the opposition – is clear enough, but the arcana of rules is terribly confusing. As Andy Griffith asked fifty years ago in “What it Was, Was Football,” why do the convicts in the striped shirts throw yellow flags ever so often and make everyone stop what they are doing?
But our little town’s Wildcats are the exception, even for those who consider Keats more cunning than Knute, know Blake better than Bear, and think Tom Eliot tops Tom Landry.
This exception is because the only real football is high school football, the true inheritor of mediaeval English village sports in which, it is alleged, a live pig was employed at the beginning of the game (by the end, said pig was dead). When the sturdy young men of one’s own village thrash out their differences with the young men of the neighboring village, the competition is local and personal, and thus genuinely interesting.
Our town’s reputation for football has often been expressed in that charitable metaphor, “a rebuilding season.” Further, even in the shifting of districts because of demographics, the Wildcats invariably found themselves up against dynasties of state champions. Great big state champions. Great big state champions whose knuckles scraped the ground as they loped across the field bellowing a rather feral basso profundo like primeval swamp critters. But the games were played on the home fields and in the home mud, against the in-laws from up and down the two-lane, and sometimes the Wildcats won, and it was always fun anyway.
Even shy and retiring bookworms jump up and down with excitement when the Wildcats play.
And now, in the best Disney tradition, the Cinderella Wildcats have not only whupped two dynastic teams but are going to State in high hopes of achieving two almost impossible dreams, the championship and, even better, the championship without a single defeat from August to December.
The Wildcats will play the Muleshoe (um…surely Mules?) at Grand Prairie this Saturday at 6:00 P.M. Muleshoe is across the border from Clovis, New Mexico, named for the 6th century founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which has nothing to do with anything except perhaps to remind us that, like royal dynasties, football dynasties too are transitory.
But for now, just imagine the Wildcats with the state championship!
Yes, this game is going to be far more interesting than a nap.
-30-
For those of us gnashing our decaff lattas in the non-athletic darkness, football is only slightly more interesting than a nap, and on Sunday afternoon the nap definitely takes the gold. The basic thrust of the game – carrying an oddly-shaped leather ball across a boundary in the face, facemasks, and sometimes fists of the opposition – is clear enough, but the arcana of rules is terribly confusing. As Andy Griffith asked fifty years ago in “What it Was, Was Football,” why do the convicts in the striped shirts throw yellow flags ever so often and make everyone stop what they are doing?
But our little town’s Wildcats are the exception, even for those who consider Keats more cunning than Knute, know Blake better than Bear, and think Tom Eliot tops Tom Landry.
This exception is because the only real football is high school football, the true inheritor of mediaeval English village sports in which, it is alleged, a live pig was employed at the beginning of the game (by the end, said pig was dead). When the sturdy young men of one’s own village thrash out their differences with the young men of the neighboring village, the competition is local and personal, and thus genuinely interesting.
Our town’s reputation for football has often been expressed in that charitable metaphor, “a rebuilding season.” Further, even in the shifting of districts because of demographics, the Wildcats invariably found themselves up against dynasties of state champions. Great big state champions. Great big state champions whose knuckles scraped the ground as they loped across the field bellowing a rather feral basso profundo like primeval swamp critters. But the games were played on the home fields and in the home mud, against the in-laws from up and down the two-lane, and sometimes the Wildcats won, and it was always fun anyway.
Even shy and retiring bookworms jump up and down with excitement when the Wildcats play.
And now, in the best Disney tradition, the Cinderella Wildcats have not only whupped two dynastic teams but are going to State in high hopes of achieving two almost impossible dreams, the championship and, even better, the championship without a single defeat from August to December.
The Wildcats will play the Muleshoe (um…surely Mules?) at Grand Prairie this Saturday at 6:00 P.M. Muleshoe is across the border from Clovis, New Mexico, named for the 6th century founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which has nothing to do with anything except perhaps to remind us that, like royal dynasties, football dynasties too are transitory.
But for now, just imagine the Wildcats with the state championship!
Yes, this game is going to be far more interesting than a nap.
-30-
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Encountering the Third World
Mack Hall
The week of Thanksgiving was one of horror, with televised images of terrorism, horror, panic, murder, and blood. And that was just the first few days of Christmas shopping in America.
Like The Religion of Peace-That-May-Not-be-Named, America is beginning to mark its holy days with body counts: one employee trampled to death (though not eaten) by shoppers in a big-box store in Long Island, New York, two dead by gunfire in a toy store in Palm Desert, California, and miscellaneous robberies in parking lots during the start of this festive season.
When the Long Island police closed the big-box store briefly to establish a crime scene for investigation, the murderers were angered that their shopping was interrupted. After a few hours the Arkansas-based chain, in their compassion for an employee murdered while on the job, reopened the store because, after all, this is The Christmas Season.
Perhaps a foreign newspaper will write something like this about us: The really frightening thing is that America, populated by such backward, irresponsible inhabitants, is a nuclear nation. Spain, France, England, Japan, and China have in turn tried to colonize America, but with little residual effect. Americans remain a simple people, easily amused by gifts of shiny but worthless trifles. They delight in adorning themselves as perpetual children; even among the elderly grown-up clothing is as little known as thrift and self-restraint. If such child-like primitives cannot be trusted not to kill each other over made-in-China baubles, how much danger might they be to civilized nations? One fears that the nuclear trigger is in reach of a text-messaging forty-something Yank wearing head-phones, sneakers, knee-pants, and a tee-shirt bearing the iconic message of America in the 21st century: “Whasssssssssssssssss-Upppppppppppppppp?”
President Bush has offered help to India because of the latest mass murders committed by what some are pleased to call youths, but perhaps India could help us first because of murders committed by Christmas shoppers. We point a patronizing finger at other dysfunctional cultures only at the risk of having an equally disapproving finger pointed back at our own.
Every year one reads how commercialized Christmas has become, but Christmas has not become commercialized at all: we have. And commercialization is fine in its place; the buying and selling of goods mean jobs and prosperity. Commerce is good, up until the point where shopping becomes not simply foolishness, like the silly woman who camps out in front of a store for days before a sale, but an act of terrorism.
We can do better.
The week of Thanksgiving was one of horror, with televised images of terrorism, horror, panic, murder, and blood. And that was just the first few days of Christmas shopping in America.
Like The Religion of Peace-That-May-Not-be-Named, America is beginning to mark its holy days with body counts: one employee trampled to death (though not eaten) by shoppers in a big-box store in Long Island, New York, two dead by gunfire in a toy store in Palm Desert, California, and miscellaneous robberies in parking lots during the start of this festive season.
When the Long Island police closed the big-box store briefly to establish a crime scene for investigation, the murderers were angered that their shopping was interrupted. After a few hours the Arkansas-based chain, in their compassion for an employee murdered while on the job, reopened the store because, after all, this is The Christmas Season.
Perhaps a foreign newspaper will write something like this about us: The really frightening thing is that America, populated by such backward, irresponsible inhabitants, is a nuclear nation. Spain, France, England, Japan, and China have in turn tried to colonize America, but with little residual effect. Americans remain a simple people, easily amused by gifts of shiny but worthless trifles. They delight in adorning themselves as perpetual children; even among the elderly grown-up clothing is as little known as thrift and self-restraint. If such child-like primitives cannot be trusted not to kill each other over made-in-China baubles, how much danger might they be to civilized nations? One fears that the nuclear trigger is in reach of a text-messaging forty-something Yank wearing head-phones, sneakers, knee-pants, and a tee-shirt bearing the iconic message of America in the 21st century: “Whasssssssssssssssss-Upppppppppppppppp?”
President Bush has offered help to India because of the latest mass murders committed by what some are pleased to call youths, but perhaps India could help us first because of murders committed by Christmas shoppers. We point a patronizing finger at other dysfunctional cultures only at the risk of having an equally disapproving finger pointed back at our own.
Every year one reads how commercialized Christmas has become, but Christmas has not become commercialized at all: we have. And commercialization is fine in its place; the buying and selling of goods mean jobs and prosperity. Commerce is good, up until the point where shopping becomes not simply foolishness, like the silly woman who camps out in front of a store for days before a sale, but an act of terrorism.
We can do better.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Who Are You?
Mack Hall
The Duke of Norfolk: “What sort of foolery is this? Does the King visit you every day?”
Thomas More: “No, but I go to Vespers most days.”
-- A Man for All Seasons
What one really wants to see at Thanksgiving is the President whippin’ out a .22 and shooting the turkey (the strutting bird, not the strutting reporter) on the White House lawn instead of pardoning it.
Perhaps a new ritual could be initiated – a poor worker could be dragged out in front of the White House and forgiven this year’s confiscatory taxes.
Presidents seem to be required to waste their time on purely secular rituals that carry little relation to the ancient unities of faith and civilization: pardoning turkeys, doing something with Easter eggs, throwing out the first baseball, and worshipping the Superbowl.
The last thing we expect to see of a president in the 21st century is participation in a real ritual such as attending Vespers, making the Stations of the Cross, carrying the Gospels in a procession, standing as a happy witness at a baptism, or pardoning a human prisoner with a brotherly admonition to go and sin no more.
The religious rituals are thin enough now, and as a result the secular ones are increasingly bizarre. Make no mistake about it, humans will have rituals as surely as they will have stories, and if the genuine rituals and genuine stories are discarded they will be replaced with Hallmark ones or worse.
Recently several Texas cheerleaders were indicted for tying and blind-folding younger cheerleaders and then throwing them into a swimming pool, a situation that could well have led to deaths. This humiliation and endangerment were part of, yes, an initiation ritual.
Let us consider the facts. First, the older girls came ‘round in cars early in the morning – also known as the middle of the night – to take away the younger girls, purportedly to breakfast. Second, the older girls bound the girls with duct tape. Third, the older girls blind-folded the younger girls. Fourth, the older girls threw the younger girls into a swimming pool, bound and blindfolded.
And few people saw any harm in this. It’s a ritual; we’ve always done it; if you don’t let us lie to you and humiliate you and endanger you we won’t be your friends.
American soldiers are in federal prisons for doing far less to murderers who strap bombs to women and children.
In a few weeks the Chief Justice of the United States will in a ritual swear in a new President, demonstrating once again that America changes governments without coups or putsches or mass executions of the losing side. The President will take an oath, a public oath, perhaps with his hand resting on a copy of the Bible. And that’s it. He won’t be blindfolded, he won’t be stripped naked, he won’t be bullied into drinking alcohol, he won’t be endangered by torture, and he won’t have to refer to bullies as his brothers.
Humans have a need to be accepted by other humans, and certainly the village grouch is to be pitied. But a human should also possess and good sense of self and a certain autonomy in matters of dignity and self-preservation.
If a group of people come to get you in the middle of the night, like the Venezuelan or Cuban secret police, they do not have your best interests at heart. If you have a choice, why go with them?
If someone blindfolds you, he is taking away your ability to see. Why?
If someone binds you, he is taking away your ability to move freely and your ability to defend yourself. Why?
If someone humiliates you so that you will be permitted to be his friend, well, why? Do you really want to be accepted by people suffering weird psycho-sexual hangups? Far, far better for such unhappy and inadequate people to disapprove of you!
As your old daddy told you, always remember who you are.
-30-
The Duke of Norfolk: “What sort of foolery is this? Does the King visit you every day?”
Thomas More: “No, but I go to Vespers most days.”
-- A Man for All Seasons
What one really wants to see at Thanksgiving is the President whippin’ out a .22 and shooting the turkey (the strutting bird, not the strutting reporter) on the White House lawn instead of pardoning it.
Perhaps a new ritual could be initiated – a poor worker could be dragged out in front of the White House and forgiven this year’s confiscatory taxes.
Presidents seem to be required to waste their time on purely secular rituals that carry little relation to the ancient unities of faith and civilization: pardoning turkeys, doing something with Easter eggs, throwing out the first baseball, and worshipping the Superbowl.
The last thing we expect to see of a president in the 21st century is participation in a real ritual such as attending Vespers, making the Stations of the Cross, carrying the Gospels in a procession, standing as a happy witness at a baptism, or pardoning a human prisoner with a brotherly admonition to go and sin no more.
The religious rituals are thin enough now, and as a result the secular ones are increasingly bizarre. Make no mistake about it, humans will have rituals as surely as they will have stories, and if the genuine rituals and genuine stories are discarded they will be replaced with Hallmark ones or worse.
Recently several Texas cheerleaders were indicted for tying and blind-folding younger cheerleaders and then throwing them into a swimming pool, a situation that could well have led to deaths. This humiliation and endangerment were part of, yes, an initiation ritual.
Let us consider the facts. First, the older girls came ‘round in cars early in the morning – also known as the middle of the night – to take away the younger girls, purportedly to breakfast. Second, the older girls bound the girls with duct tape. Third, the older girls blind-folded the younger girls. Fourth, the older girls threw the younger girls into a swimming pool, bound and blindfolded.
And few people saw any harm in this. It’s a ritual; we’ve always done it; if you don’t let us lie to you and humiliate you and endanger you we won’t be your friends.
American soldiers are in federal prisons for doing far less to murderers who strap bombs to women and children.
In a few weeks the Chief Justice of the United States will in a ritual swear in a new President, demonstrating once again that America changes governments without coups or putsches or mass executions of the losing side. The President will take an oath, a public oath, perhaps with his hand resting on a copy of the Bible. And that’s it. He won’t be blindfolded, he won’t be stripped naked, he won’t be bullied into drinking alcohol, he won’t be endangered by torture, and he won’t have to refer to bullies as his brothers.
Humans have a need to be accepted by other humans, and certainly the village grouch is to be pitied. But a human should also possess and good sense of self and a certain autonomy in matters of dignity and self-preservation.
If a group of people come to get you in the middle of the night, like the Venezuelan or Cuban secret police, they do not have your best interests at heart. If you have a choice, why go with them?
If someone blindfolds you, he is taking away your ability to see. Why?
If someone binds you, he is taking away your ability to move freely and your ability to defend yourself. Why?
If someone humiliates you so that you will be permitted to be his friend, well, why? Do you really want to be accepted by people suffering weird psycho-sexual hangups? Far, far better for such unhappy and inadequate people to disapprove of you!
As your old daddy told you, always remember who you are.
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