Mack Hall
Sycophants in an Echo Chamber
A flock of the fashionable, like guinea-hens yakking in middle of the road, recently made public pledges to be the President’s servants in all things dim and dutiful. Naturally they made a MeMeMeTubeMyFace video, and appear to have employed an echo chamber ("I pledge…I pledge…I pledge…"), though perhaps that is merely an effect of vain repetition.
As a response to those craven obedientiaries I propose somewhat more meaningful pledges:
I pledge…pledge…pledge (ya like that echo effect?) to be no man’s servant and no man’s master.
I pledge…pledge…pledge to use real bulbs until Dear Leader’s Light Bulb Czar’s Special Incandescent Action Unit catches me and prosecutes me into oblivion.
I pledge…pledge…pledge to buy the biggest car I can afford and to make frequent and unnecessary trips.
I pledge…pledge…pledge to buy coffee without a Fair Trade label.
I pledge…pledge…pledge always to love America and to remain unsophisticated and non-Euro.
I pledge…pledge…pledge not to pay much attention to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. The best of folks suffer flaws, but I see no reason why any responsible, self-disciplined American should sacrifice a minute of God’s precious gift of life to a couple of impenitent, dysfunctional, draft-dodging, chemically-dependent, wholly self-centered, shrieking nutters. They seem so European.
I pledge…pledge…pledge to turn the thermostat in my house to where I want it, not to where The Thermostat Czar wants it.
I pledge…pledge…pledge to eat chunks of dead animals more often. Vegetarianism is for Manichaeans.
I pledge…pledge…pledge to employ chemical pesticides and fertilizers on my yard and garden.
I pledge…pledge…pledge never to drink coffee brewed from the excreta of cats. I love ya, Al, but not that much.
I pledge…pledge…pledge to repudiate and resist the edicts of any of Dear Leader’s thirty-three or so extra-Constitutional czars. We don’t need no stinking czars.
I pledge…pledge…pledge that when the grocery store asks me "Paper? Or plastic?" I will ask for both so that I won’t miss a chance to overheat the planet and stress the whales and polar bears.
I pledge…pledge…pledge to do my best to avoid companies who advertise that they are environmentally friendly. If they want me to pay them money for a product or service they’d darned well better be Mackly friendly.
Unlike the rich and slovenly, I pledge…pledge…pledge to dress in clothes that don’t look as if they have been stolen from a Salvation Army donation bin.
I pledge…pledge…pledge to vote, vote, vote. Always.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Japan-Venus Axis of Miyuki
Mack Hall
Japan’s new first lady, Miyuki Hatoyama, claims to have travelled to Venus on a space ship and to have known Tom Cruise in a past life when he was Japanese.
Oh, yeah. And maybe she took her kids shopping in Paris aboard a Japanese government matter-displacement-machine-thingie.
I think we can agree that the batteries in this woman’s E-meter need replacing.
Mrs. Hatoyama has enjoyed a number of careers, including writing cookbooks. Hey, lady, ya gotta watch those mushrooms in the next edition, okay?
One imagines what the wives’ part of a state visit to the USA might involve, with Mrs. Obama opening the conversation by asking "Hey, would you like to visit the kids’ vegetable garden?"
Mrs. Hatoyama might reply with "Oh, yes! My 2,452 transmigrated oversouls and I had such a lovely garden on the planet Venus several million years ago. That’s Venusian years, of course, not Earth years."
"Er…okay. And perhaps we can have a nice cup of tea outside on this lovely Washington day."
"I’d like that, Mrs. Obama. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise used to serve me tea in a galaxy far, far away. A 1960 Ford Galaxy, I think. He always said I would have been his first choice for ship’s counselor, you know."
"Umm…"
"And where are your lovely children, Mrs. Obama? I always say that children make the nicest window ornaments. I just love children; they go so well when stir-fried over charcoal and served with a nice red wine."
"Oh, well, gosh, they had lessons late at school today. I’m so sorry you’re going to miss them."
"Oh, too bad. I was looking forward to telling them about being a Cosmic Geisha at the Space Academy when Tom Cruise was a mediaeval emperor of Japan and well on his way to becoming The Lord High Master of the Universe until he was magicked into a lime-green toadstool by the jealous perfidious chamberlain Snargborth employing the spell-casting Klingon wand he stole from the tormented Keepers of the Blue Cave on the Planet Forsooth in the Fourth Dimension of the Gatekeepers of Doom. He addressed the children on the first day of school, you know. Before he was a toadstool, I mean."
"Oh, yes, my husband did that this year. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck turned red and purple, and almost died of strokes. Not that you could tell any difference with Glenn Beck."
"I so wanted to address all the children of Japan on the first day of school this year, but when my husband the prime minister read my speech about the importance of daily nuclear colon cleansing he suggested that I needed a nice vacation at this darling resort in Switzerland. They had the nicest injections there, and I got to meet Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. They have such intriguing oversouls, and naturally have visited all the poshest planets. I gave them autographed copies of my children’s cookbook. Hmmm…I wonder who did address the children."
"I’m sure it worked out for the best, my dear. I wonder where our husbands are?…pssst…Secret Service…my location, now…set phasers on stun…"
Japan’s new first lady, Miyuki Hatoyama, claims to have travelled to Venus on a space ship and to have known Tom Cruise in a past life when he was Japanese.
Oh, yeah. And maybe she took her kids shopping in Paris aboard a Japanese government matter-displacement-machine-thingie.
I think we can agree that the batteries in this woman’s E-meter need replacing.
Mrs. Hatoyama has enjoyed a number of careers, including writing cookbooks. Hey, lady, ya gotta watch those mushrooms in the next edition, okay?
One imagines what the wives’ part of a state visit to the USA might involve, with Mrs. Obama opening the conversation by asking "Hey, would you like to visit the kids’ vegetable garden?"
Mrs. Hatoyama might reply with "Oh, yes! My 2,452 transmigrated oversouls and I had such a lovely garden on the planet Venus several million years ago. That’s Venusian years, of course, not Earth years."
"Er…okay. And perhaps we can have a nice cup of tea outside on this lovely Washington day."
"I’d like that, Mrs. Obama. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise used to serve me tea in a galaxy far, far away. A 1960 Ford Galaxy, I think. He always said I would have been his first choice for ship’s counselor, you know."
"Umm…"
"And where are your lovely children, Mrs. Obama? I always say that children make the nicest window ornaments. I just love children; they go so well when stir-fried over charcoal and served with a nice red wine."
"Oh, well, gosh, they had lessons late at school today. I’m so sorry you’re going to miss them."
"Oh, too bad. I was looking forward to telling them about being a Cosmic Geisha at the Space Academy when Tom Cruise was a mediaeval emperor of Japan and well on his way to becoming The Lord High Master of the Universe until he was magicked into a lime-green toadstool by the jealous perfidious chamberlain Snargborth employing the spell-casting Klingon wand he stole from the tormented Keepers of the Blue Cave on the Planet Forsooth in the Fourth Dimension of the Gatekeepers of Doom. He addressed the children on the first day of school, you know. Before he was a toadstool, I mean."
"Oh, yes, my husband did that this year. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck turned red and purple, and almost died of strokes. Not that you could tell any difference with Glenn Beck."
"I so wanted to address all the children of Japan on the first day of school this year, but when my husband the prime minister read my speech about the importance of daily nuclear colon cleansing he suggested that I needed a nice vacation at this darling resort in Switzerland. They had the nicest injections there, and I got to meet Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. They have such intriguing oversouls, and naturally have visited all the poshest planets. I gave them autographed copies of my children’s cookbook. Hmmm…I wonder who did address the children."
"I’m sure it worked out for the best, my dear. I wonder where our husbands are?…pssst…Secret Service…my location, now…set phasers on stun…"
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Jeeves and Hitler
Mack Hall
P. G. Wodehouse wrote ten or so novels and perhaps fifty short stories about his two most famous fictional creations, Jeeves and Wooster. As Jeeves would say, "they make light, attractive reading" about the wealthy and rather dim Bertie Wooster and his brilliant valet, Jeeves. Although the stories were written over six decades, Bertie and Jeeves are forever young, living in an innocent England that never was. Like the white-telephone movies of the 1930s, the Jeeves and Wooster yarns are comic treats with no message, no edge, and no heavy breathing, and with only the most harmless of Roadrunner car crashes and explosions.
That exposition established, I relate to you, gentle reader, the recent communication I had from a bookseller:
Dear Amazon.com Customer,
As someone who has purchased or rated Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P. G. Wodehouse, you might like to know that With Hitler to the End: The Memoir of Hitler’s Valet will be released on September 1, 2009. You can pre-order yours…
The educated reader will agree that one cannot pre-order anything, just as one cannot pre-plan, pre-pay, or pre-position; one can only order, plan, pay, or position. My, my, my, what do they teach them in the schools these days?
But to the point: one can only marvel at Amazon.com’s intellectual and ideological contortions in connecting mild fictional amusement with very real genocide.
Heinz Linge was Hitler’s valet, and after his release from ten years of Soviet imprisonment wrote his memoirs, to be published this fall. Linge-Jeeves won’t receive any royalties, though, since he died in 1980.
Do you suppose that when Linge was born his parents said "Oh, what a fine-looking baby! I hope he grows up to be a servant to a mass-murderer!"
One wonders what a typical day in Linge’s life was like, imagining him quietly taking in the morning cup of tea to The One’s bedroom and parting the curtains:
"’Morning, Linge," yawns Dear Leader. "What sort of day is it?"
"Good morning, Dear Leader. Extremely clement, sir," says Linge. "Shall I lay out our hound’s-tooth check? We have an informal execution in the garden at two."
"Linge, one doesn’t like to complain, but you’ve served me the lapsang instead of the Irish breakfast tea!"
"I am terribly sorry, sir. I’ll have the kitchen maid who fills the tea canisters shot at once."
"Oh, that won’t be necessary; just send her to Dachau for end-of-life counseling. Never let it be said that the Fuhrer hasn’t a heart of gold as well as a will of iron, eh, what?"
"That is very kind of you, sir. I’ll draw your bath now, sir, if that is satisfactory."
Jeeves is always rescuing Bertie Wooster from jams into which the young master has gotten himself, often accidental engagements. Linge could have tried harder with his own master:
"So, Linge, you think I shouldn’t have gotten involved with Russia, eh? Pray tell why."
"Well, sir, Russia is an amusing and, shall we say, vivacious country, but for a man of your, er, quiet, retiring habits of drugs, the occult, and the occasional betrayal of old comrades…"
"Explain yourself, Linge."
"Ahem. While Russia is well-noted for Tchaikovsky, Chekhov, vodka, beefy farm girls with large forearms, and mass executions…"
"Aha! You see, Linge – mass executions. I like mass executions. The Soviets like mass executions. This is a marriage made in He…well, you know."
"Indeed, sir."
"So let’s have no more blithering rot about my incursion into the Soviet Union."
"Just as you say, sir."
What did Heinz Linge do for a living later in life? Was there much of a market for gentlemen’s gentlemen in Berlin in 1955?
"Well, Mr. Linge," says the employment counselor, "we seem to have a problem with your references. You say they all died in 1945? Ummm...you understand that there's not much call for valets for genocidal maniacs just now. Perhaps as a greeter at a big-box store...how are you at working with the public? Maybe a position as a market analyst for a bookstore chain?"
P. G. Wodehouse wrote ten or so novels and perhaps fifty short stories about his two most famous fictional creations, Jeeves and Wooster. As Jeeves would say, "they make light, attractive reading" about the wealthy and rather dim Bertie Wooster and his brilliant valet, Jeeves. Although the stories were written over six decades, Bertie and Jeeves are forever young, living in an innocent England that never was. Like the white-telephone movies of the 1930s, the Jeeves and Wooster yarns are comic treats with no message, no edge, and no heavy breathing, and with only the most harmless of Roadrunner car crashes and explosions.
That exposition established, I relate to you, gentle reader, the recent communication I had from a bookseller:
Dear Amazon.com Customer,
As someone who has purchased or rated Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P. G. Wodehouse, you might like to know that With Hitler to the End: The Memoir of Hitler’s Valet will be released on September 1, 2009. You can pre-order yours…
The educated reader will agree that one cannot pre-order anything, just as one cannot pre-plan, pre-pay, or pre-position; one can only order, plan, pay, or position. My, my, my, what do they teach them in the schools these days?
But to the point: one can only marvel at Amazon.com’s intellectual and ideological contortions in connecting mild fictional amusement with very real genocide.
Heinz Linge was Hitler’s valet, and after his release from ten years of Soviet imprisonment wrote his memoirs, to be published this fall. Linge-Jeeves won’t receive any royalties, though, since he died in 1980.
Do you suppose that when Linge was born his parents said "Oh, what a fine-looking baby! I hope he grows up to be a servant to a mass-murderer!"
One wonders what a typical day in Linge’s life was like, imagining him quietly taking in the morning cup of tea to The One’s bedroom and parting the curtains:
"’Morning, Linge," yawns Dear Leader. "What sort of day is it?"
"Good morning, Dear Leader. Extremely clement, sir," says Linge. "Shall I lay out our hound’s-tooth check? We have an informal execution in the garden at two."
"Linge, one doesn’t like to complain, but you’ve served me the lapsang instead of the Irish breakfast tea!"
"I am terribly sorry, sir. I’ll have the kitchen maid who fills the tea canisters shot at once."
"Oh, that won’t be necessary; just send her to Dachau for end-of-life counseling. Never let it be said that the Fuhrer hasn’t a heart of gold as well as a will of iron, eh, what?"
"That is very kind of you, sir. I’ll draw your bath now, sir, if that is satisfactory."
Jeeves is always rescuing Bertie Wooster from jams into which the young master has gotten himself, often accidental engagements. Linge could have tried harder with his own master:
"So, Linge, you think I shouldn’t have gotten involved with Russia, eh? Pray tell why."
"Well, sir, Russia is an amusing and, shall we say, vivacious country, but for a man of your, er, quiet, retiring habits of drugs, the occult, and the occasional betrayal of old comrades…"
"Explain yourself, Linge."
"Ahem. While Russia is well-noted for Tchaikovsky, Chekhov, vodka, beefy farm girls with large forearms, and mass executions…"
"Aha! You see, Linge – mass executions. I like mass executions. The Soviets like mass executions. This is a marriage made in He…well, you know."
"Indeed, sir."
"So let’s have no more blithering rot about my incursion into the Soviet Union."
"Just as you say, sir."
What did Heinz Linge do for a living later in life? Was there much of a market for gentlemen’s gentlemen in Berlin in 1955?
"Well, Mr. Linge," says the employment counselor, "we seem to have a problem with your references. You say they all died in 1945? Ummm...you understand that there's not much call for valets for genocidal maniacs just now. Perhaps as a greeter at a big-box store...how are you at working with the public? Maybe a position as a market analyst for a bookstore chain?"
Sunday, August 16, 2009
"Waiter! This Coffee Does NOT Taste Like (poop)!"
Mack Hall
Each generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
-- Henry David Thoreau
If you take a cow-floppy and roast it in the oven, what you pull out of the oven is a very hot cow-floppy.
Re-naming a cow-floppy something vaguely exotic sounding, such as Impedimenta-Et-Malbowel-Fleur-de-Loo, won’t change the reality of what a cow-floppy is.
If you do the same things with cat-(poop), it’s still cat-(poop). And you don’t put (poop) in your mouth.
Well, maybe you do.
A recent fashion among imbibers of exotic coffees is something called Kopi Luwak, which is a Sumatran phrase meaning "Those stupid Americans will pay ten dollars a cup for brewed cat-(poop)."
In Sumatra lives a cat called a luwaks…but let me tell you a story about a couple of hunters lost in the woods. Hey, it worked as an opening for Brigadoon, eh?
I imagine a couple of fellows hunting those weird cats in the forests of Sumatra a few years ago, observing the cat-(poop) on the ground much as we note the rabbit-(poop) as we walk our woods.
"Wayne," said Arthur (Wayne and Arthur being traditional Sumatran names), "I’ll bet ya lunch we can persuade those stupid Americans to consume this cat-(poop) and pay for it, too."
"No way," said Wayne. "Americans aren’t that dumb. The Irish, maybe, but not the Americans."
"Yes, they are," replied Arthur. "We merchants persuaded them to wear knee-pants, didn’t we? And backwards baseball caps. And leather holsters for cell ‘phones. All at wildly inflated prices. I tell ya, Americans have no critical thinking skills whatsoever. Tell ‘em over and over that something really dumb is now cool, and they’ll line up obediently to buy it. They’ll buy cat-(poop), all right, if we can only figure out an angle to make it cool."
"You’ve got a point. Hey, we could make this cat-(poop) into coffee, advertise it with a lot of high-falutin’ adjectives, and charge big bucks for it!"
And so it came to pass that cat-(poop) was harvested from the jungle floors of the Far East by barefoot women singing their quaint native songs, such as "Catanooga Chew-Chew," "The Camptown Outhouse," "Splish-Splash, I Was Takin’ a Dump," and "One Ton o’ Guano." It was then carried to well-lit and well-ventilated (no doubt) factories to be ground and packaged. The cat-(poop) coffee was then exported to the USA, where a cuppa cost more than the workers made in a day.
Cat-(poop) coffee was given the Imprimutter and Nihil Thermostat by the talk shows, and the American people obeyed and bought, leading to new forms of discourse in the coffee shops of this great land:
"Is this cat-(poop) fair-trade?"
"Waiter, my coffee doesn’t taste like (poop)."
"Today’s Senior Special is one egg, one sausage, toast, and coffee with cat-(poop)."
The chalk-boards in coffee kiosks in all the college towns will soon feature expensive (poop)y coffees from all over the globe:
Jamaican Blue Mountain Cat Diarrhea
Australian Dingo Dooky
Tim Horton’s Canadian Loon Plop
French Roast DeCaf DeCatte La Belle Stool Specimen
All-American Cuppa Yankee Doo-Doo
Brazilian Number Two
Danish Defacatte
Portuguese Potty
English Royal Flush
X-treem Norwegian Fecal Impaction Action
Colombian Colo-rectal Mocha
I sure hope FEMA lays in a supply before the next hurricane.
Each generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
-- Henry David Thoreau
If you take a cow-floppy and roast it in the oven, what you pull out of the oven is a very hot cow-floppy.
Re-naming a cow-floppy something vaguely exotic sounding, such as Impedimenta-Et-Malbowel-Fleur-de-Loo, won’t change the reality of what a cow-floppy is.
If you do the same things with cat-(poop), it’s still cat-(poop). And you don’t put (poop) in your mouth.
Well, maybe you do.
A recent fashion among imbibers of exotic coffees is something called Kopi Luwak, which is a Sumatran phrase meaning "Those stupid Americans will pay ten dollars a cup for brewed cat-(poop)."
In Sumatra lives a cat called a luwaks…but let me tell you a story about a couple of hunters lost in the woods. Hey, it worked as an opening for Brigadoon, eh?
I imagine a couple of fellows hunting those weird cats in the forests of Sumatra a few years ago, observing the cat-(poop) on the ground much as we note the rabbit-(poop) as we walk our woods.
"Wayne," said Arthur (Wayne and Arthur being traditional Sumatran names), "I’ll bet ya lunch we can persuade those stupid Americans to consume this cat-(poop) and pay for it, too."
"No way," said Wayne. "Americans aren’t that dumb. The Irish, maybe, but not the Americans."
"Yes, they are," replied Arthur. "We merchants persuaded them to wear knee-pants, didn’t we? And backwards baseball caps. And leather holsters for cell ‘phones. All at wildly inflated prices. I tell ya, Americans have no critical thinking skills whatsoever. Tell ‘em over and over that something really dumb is now cool, and they’ll line up obediently to buy it. They’ll buy cat-(poop), all right, if we can only figure out an angle to make it cool."
"You’ve got a point. Hey, we could make this cat-(poop) into coffee, advertise it with a lot of high-falutin’ adjectives, and charge big bucks for it!"
And so it came to pass that cat-(poop) was harvested from the jungle floors of the Far East by barefoot women singing their quaint native songs, such as "Catanooga Chew-Chew," "The Camptown Outhouse," "Splish-Splash, I Was Takin’ a Dump," and "One Ton o’ Guano." It was then carried to well-lit and well-ventilated (no doubt) factories to be ground and packaged. The cat-(poop) coffee was then exported to the USA, where a cuppa cost more than the workers made in a day.
Cat-(poop) coffee was given the Imprimutter and Nihil Thermostat by the talk shows, and the American people obeyed and bought, leading to new forms of discourse in the coffee shops of this great land:
"Is this cat-(poop) fair-trade?"
"Waiter, my coffee doesn’t taste like (poop)."
"Today’s Senior Special is one egg, one sausage, toast, and coffee with cat-(poop)."
The chalk-boards in coffee kiosks in all the college towns will soon feature expensive (poop)y coffees from all over the globe:
Jamaican Blue Mountain Cat Diarrhea
Australian Dingo Dooky
Tim Horton’s Canadian Loon Plop
French Roast DeCaf DeCatte La Belle Stool Specimen
All-American Cuppa Yankee Doo-Doo
Brazilian Number Two
Danish Defacatte
Portuguese Potty
English Royal Flush
X-treem Norwegian Fecal Impaction Action
Colombian Colo-rectal Mocha
I sure hope FEMA lays in a supply before the next hurricane.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Fidel Castro and The People's Toilet Paper
Mack Hall
Cuba, which in 1959 was violently changed from an oppressive thug-ocracy into, well, another oppressive thug-ocracy, only with longer speeches and more efficient firing-squads, is currently suffering from a shortage of toilet paper.
The shortage of premium wipe might be explained by the publication of Fidel Castro’s latest book, a 339-page Fidel Castro dictionary from which scholars may choose Fidel Castro’s favorite words and Fidel Castro’s favorite phrases in order to think and write the way Fidel Castro and the Fidel Castro government want them to.
No word yet on whether the phrase "died of a heart attack while trying to escape an end-of-life counseling center" is in Fidel Castro’s latest gift to civilization and scholarship.
Considering that no one has actually seen El Comandante in some three years, "ghost-written" might be an entry.
When Samuel Johnson wrote and published his dictionary in the 18th century he had to find and court subscribers to fund it. Dictators suffer no such problems; they simply wave a clean, work-free, manicured finger and say something like "So let it be written. So let it be done."
While there is enough paper to print El Comandante’s All-About-Me dictionary (it’s going to be a best seller – or else), there isn’t enough paper for certain delicate biological purposes.
According to the Communist government, Cuba’s economic problems are not due to central planning but because of three hurricanes. And, as we know, that evil, evil fiend President Bush and his minion Dick Cheney, who rips the wings off garden fairies, generated hurricanes that wiped out (so to speak) Cuba’s supplies of toilet paper. Bwahahahahaha!
According to a Fidel Castro official on Fidel Castro radio, "…at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper."
And your grandparents were excited about finding oranges and bananas in their Christmas stockings during the Great Depression. Imagine little Carmen or little Juan on (The Working People’s Inclusive and Sensitive Winter Festival) morning this year: "Mama! Papa! Look! Santa Claus left me a roll of toilet paper! I am so happy!"
"Yes, little Juan," papa will say, "Give thanks for the brilliant economic leadership of our beloved El Comandante Fidel Castro that our poor but proud toiling Socialist workers’ and peasants’ family has a roll of toilet paper for (The Working People’s Inclusive and Sensitive Winter Festival)."
Cuba, rich in arable land, imports 60% of its food thanks to the agricultural expertise of El Comandante and his mini-me, Raul. However, mayonnaise, barbecue sauce and canned squid have been reduced in price. Hmmmm, boy, there’s nothing that says Christmas dinner like canned squid. Stock up, everyone!
As for that toilet paper shortage, I have a suggestion: the thoughts of Marx, Mao, Lenin, and Engels. All over Fidel Castro’s Cuba there are Fidel Castro schools and Fidel Castro libraries containing the collected works of the propagators of one of the 19th century’s more cockroachy ideas, Communism. Millions and millions of people have died because of the evils dreamed up and then published by Marx, Mao, Lenin, Engels, and other scribbling vermin. A fitting conclusion to this macabre experiment in human extermination would be to let the survivors wipe away (ahem) the horrors with the mad ravings of the mass murderers. One of Fidel’s printed speeches alone ought to last through a bad run of diarrhea. Gotta watch that canned squid, eh?
Aren’t you glad that you live in a free country flag@whitehouse.gov where there is plenty of good food and toilet paper, and where informants and block wardens flag@whitehouse.gov don’t report you to Dear Leader flag@whitehouse.gov for thoughts and speech flag@whitehouse.gov not approved of flag@whitehouse.gov?
"Your attitude’s been noticed, comrade, oh, yes, it has!
Your attitude’s been noticed, you know!"
Your attitude’s been noticed, you know!"
-- Block warden to Yuri in Doctor Zhivago
Cuba, which in 1959 was violently changed from an oppressive thug-ocracy into, well, another oppressive thug-ocracy, only with longer speeches and more efficient firing-squads, is currently suffering from a shortage of toilet paper.
The shortage of premium wipe might be explained by the publication of Fidel Castro’s latest book, a 339-page Fidel Castro dictionary from which scholars may choose Fidel Castro’s favorite words and Fidel Castro’s favorite phrases in order to think and write the way Fidel Castro and the Fidel Castro government want them to.
No word yet on whether the phrase "died of a heart attack while trying to escape an end-of-life counseling center" is in Fidel Castro’s latest gift to civilization and scholarship.
Considering that no one has actually seen El Comandante in some three years, "ghost-written" might be an entry.
When Samuel Johnson wrote and published his dictionary in the 18th century he had to find and court subscribers to fund it. Dictators suffer no such problems; they simply wave a clean, work-free, manicured finger and say something like "So let it be written. So let it be done."
While there is enough paper to print El Comandante’s All-About-Me dictionary (it’s going to be a best seller – or else), there isn’t enough paper for certain delicate biological purposes.
According to the Communist government, Cuba’s economic problems are not due to central planning but because of three hurricanes. And, as we know, that evil, evil fiend President Bush and his minion Dick Cheney, who rips the wings off garden fairies, generated hurricanes that wiped out (so to speak) Cuba’s supplies of toilet paper. Bwahahahahaha!
According to a Fidel Castro official on Fidel Castro radio, "…at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper."
And your grandparents were excited about finding oranges and bananas in their Christmas stockings during the Great Depression. Imagine little Carmen or little Juan on (The Working People’s Inclusive and Sensitive Winter Festival) morning this year: "Mama! Papa! Look! Santa Claus left me a roll of toilet paper! I am so happy!"
"Yes, little Juan," papa will say, "Give thanks for the brilliant economic leadership of our beloved El Comandante Fidel Castro that our poor but proud toiling Socialist workers’ and peasants’ family has a roll of toilet paper for (The Working People’s Inclusive and Sensitive Winter Festival)."
Cuba, rich in arable land, imports 60% of its food thanks to the agricultural expertise of El Comandante and his mini-me, Raul. However, mayonnaise, barbecue sauce and canned squid have been reduced in price. Hmmmm, boy, there’s nothing that says Christmas dinner like canned squid. Stock up, everyone!
As for that toilet paper shortage, I have a suggestion: the thoughts of Marx, Mao, Lenin, and Engels. All over Fidel Castro’s Cuba there are Fidel Castro schools and Fidel Castro libraries containing the collected works of the propagators of one of the 19th century’s more cockroachy ideas, Communism. Millions and millions of people have died because of the evils dreamed up and then published by Marx, Mao, Lenin, Engels, and other scribbling vermin. A fitting conclusion to this macabre experiment in human extermination would be to let the survivors wipe away (ahem) the horrors with the mad ravings of the mass murderers. One of Fidel’s printed speeches alone ought to last through a bad run of diarrhea. Gotta watch that canned squid, eh?
Aren’t you glad that you live in a free country flag@whitehouse.gov where there is plenty of good food and toilet paper, and where informants and block wardens flag@whitehouse.gov don’t report you to Dear Leader flag@whitehouse.gov for thoughts and speech flag@whitehouse.gov not approved of flag@whitehouse.gov?
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Cash for Concrete Slabs
Mack Hall
The president takes a lot of metaphorical flak (and should) for his successful seizure of two large automobile manufacturers and hundreds of banks, but we can’t blame Amtrak on him. Amtrak has been the government rail passenger non-system for over a generation.
And you know how successful the government takeover of passenger trains has been. Whenever anyone plans a business trip or a vacation, Amtrak is the first mode of transportation that comes to mind. Why be enviro-insensitive and drive your own gas-guzzling car to drive to the beach or the Alamo on your own selfish schedule when diesel-guzzling Amtrak can dump you among the wreckage of decaying cities in the middle of the night? Do it for the whales. And the dolphins. And global warming. And, like, y’know, stuff.
The administration has budgeted some stimulus money (get excited; it used to be your money) to help build an Amtrak railway station in Beaumont.
Once upon a time Beaumont featured stations built and run by the Santa Fe, the Southern Pacific, and the Missouri Pacific and Kansas City Southern (shared). With the seizure…um…federalization…of railway service in the 1970s all passenger service was transferred to a single Amtrak shack out in some Bermuda Triangle at the end of a shell road. Then the station was abandoned and destroyed, and ticket service was transferred to a 1-800-like-we’ll-answer-the-‘phone number. All that is left is a concrete slab in a Night of the Living Dead darkness.
The city of Beaumont and Amtrak want to build a new Amtrak station more convenient to humans than to ghosts, snakes, and mosquitoes. That better site, though, is owned by a private railway company which would prefer that passenger trains not block their trackage, even if those stops are only about six times a week.
And fair enough. If you run a business you don’t want the government mandating that a government-subsidized business completely take over your store and parking lot even for fifteen minutes every other day.
I say this calls for another beer summit. This time, though, we call in the cameras and jazz it up a bit with geezer wrestling to determine the outcome. While the president and his Chicago pals pose with stage-prop beers they won’t drink, T. Boone Pickens, Al Franken, and Ted Kennedy will wrestle in their underwear to determine the outcome. Pickens will represent the private railway company, Franken will give his muscle and sinew for Amtrak, and Kennedy will show a little skin (okay, a lot of skin) for Beaumont.
The public and ESPN will pay to watch and broadcast these three aspects (aspects with one ‘s’, if you please) of the American character rasselin’ for rails – let us call the event Cash for Clunkers, or perhaps A Teachable Moment.
Given his rotundity, Senator Kennedy might have to pay a carbon footprint penalty to donate to the Mary Jo Kopechne Memorial Swimming Scholarship.
T. Boone Pickens (what were his parents thinking?), given his wind-power scheme for which he wanted, yes, your money, could blow away the competition.
Al Franken hasn’t got a chance, for no one wants to touch a fellow who looks like the strange little man who hangs around a mall parking lot in an out-of-season raincoat.
The winner decides where the new Amtrak station is to be built. PETA and the EPA must give clearance, and the proposals must all be certified organic. The contractors, sub-contractors, and construction workers must be certified as multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-sex (with transgender issues addressed in a sensitive manner), and vegan. Any passenger trains that stop in Beaumont must be green hybrids and the engineers must be able to provide original birth certificates.
Given the history of Amtrak and other conflicting government entities, we can expect to book a ticket through Beaumont’s new Amtrak station in, oh, twenty years or so.
The president takes a lot of metaphorical flak (and should) for his successful seizure of two large automobile manufacturers and hundreds of banks, but we can’t blame Amtrak on him. Amtrak has been the government rail passenger non-system for over a generation.
And you know how successful the government takeover of passenger trains has been. Whenever anyone plans a business trip or a vacation, Amtrak is the first mode of transportation that comes to mind. Why be enviro-insensitive and drive your own gas-guzzling car to drive to the beach or the Alamo on your own selfish schedule when diesel-guzzling Amtrak can dump you among the wreckage of decaying cities in the middle of the night? Do it for the whales. And the dolphins. And global warming. And, like, y’know, stuff.
The administration has budgeted some stimulus money (get excited; it used to be your money) to help build an Amtrak railway station in Beaumont.
Once upon a time Beaumont featured stations built and run by the Santa Fe, the Southern Pacific, and the Missouri Pacific and Kansas City Southern (shared). With the seizure…um…federalization…of railway service in the 1970s all passenger service was transferred to a single Amtrak shack out in some Bermuda Triangle at the end of a shell road. Then the station was abandoned and destroyed, and ticket service was transferred to a 1-800-like-we’ll-answer-the-‘phone number. All that is left is a concrete slab in a Night of the Living Dead darkness.
The city of Beaumont and Amtrak want to build a new Amtrak station more convenient to humans than to ghosts, snakes, and mosquitoes. That better site, though, is owned by a private railway company which would prefer that passenger trains not block their trackage, even if those stops are only about six times a week.
And fair enough. If you run a business you don’t want the government mandating that a government-subsidized business completely take over your store and parking lot even for fifteen minutes every other day.
I say this calls for another beer summit. This time, though, we call in the cameras and jazz it up a bit with geezer wrestling to determine the outcome. While the president and his Chicago pals pose with stage-prop beers they won’t drink, T. Boone Pickens, Al Franken, and Ted Kennedy will wrestle in their underwear to determine the outcome. Pickens will represent the private railway company, Franken will give his muscle and sinew for Amtrak, and Kennedy will show a little skin (okay, a lot of skin) for Beaumont.
The public and ESPN will pay to watch and broadcast these three aspects (aspects with one ‘s’, if you please) of the American character rasselin’ for rails – let us call the event Cash for Clunkers, or perhaps A Teachable Moment.
Given his rotundity, Senator Kennedy might have to pay a carbon footprint penalty to donate to the Mary Jo Kopechne Memorial Swimming Scholarship.
T. Boone Pickens (what were his parents thinking?), given his wind-power scheme for which he wanted, yes, your money, could blow away the competition.
Al Franken hasn’t got a chance, for no one wants to touch a fellow who looks like the strange little man who hangs around a mall parking lot in an out-of-season raincoat.
The winner decides where the new Amtrak station is to be built. PETA and the EPA must give clearance, and the proposals must all be certified organic. The contractors, sub-contractors, and construction workers must be certified as multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-sex (with transgender issues addressed in a sensitive manner), and vegan. Any passenger trains that stop in Beaumont must be green hybrids and the engineers must be able to provide original birth certificates.
Given the history of Amtrak and other conflicting government entities, we can expect to book a ticket through Beaumont’s new Amtrak station in, oh, twenty years or so.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The Last Modem Standing
Mack Hall
Until a recent rainy evening I was the last guy in the USA using a dial-up modem for connecting to the ‘net. As the sky darkened and the wind blew and the rain began to fall I thought that I should probably go and disconnect the… (FLASH! POW!) …modem.
Cue the fading and erratic static.
The next day I went in search of another modem, and considered that the all modems I had lost to lightning would put a hurt on even the manliest of landfills. Indeed, whenever I have bought a computer in the past I also bought an external modem, knowing that a ‘puter’s built-in modem always goes poof within a week, dying perhaps of shame.
A visit to Giganto-Mart was without success; the misnamed help weren’t much interested and appeared not to know what a modem was anyway. Lots of routers, but I’m not sure I need anything routed just now; if I do, I’ve got a Garmin.
MegaXtreemOffice in Beaumont had no modems; as the young man explained, dial-up modems (or is that modi?) are now as antique as 33 1/3 records and the Edsel, and referred me to my very own cellular service at a kiosk in Happy Meadows Mall.
And there, after lengthy negotiations with a nice fellow named Basil or Sidney or something like that, though the touch of Hindi in his accent suggests that’s not what’s on his birth certificate, I am now wirelessly wired to the outside world.
Okay, my daughter had to help. She didn’t make too much fun of me.
Spending a disconnected evening with a book, the newspaper crossword (Children, your grandparents will explain to you what a newspaper is…), and (gasp) television was okay, but I am happy to resume my usual geek/nerd/anti-social/loser habits. Hey, want to know the temperature in Bombay / Mumbai today?
Neville said that wireless would load really, really, really fast up here in the woods. He was wrong. Only kinda fast. But much better than dial-up.
The best thing of all is that now I can compute anywhere in the house, and will say ‘bye-‘bye to that rather expensive telephone land-line and to the AOL account.
And now I can download videos of Fox News’ Glenn Beck screaming at people who don’t line up in straight rows. Do you get the idea that Glenn Beck was nicer when he was drinking? Glenn Beck – a French expression meaning "change the station."
My fear is that now I will become one of those tiresome people who travels with a computer. I’ll bet Glenn Beck travels with a computer.
The Last Modem standing is now a base for my beautiful old Argus C3 (the famous "Brick") 35mm film camera on display on a bookshelf, still usable some forty years after it was built, a work of art in metal and glass. Don’t you wish computers and their accessories would last that long!
Until a recent rainy evening I was the last guy in the USA using a dial-up modem for connecting to the ‘net. As the sky darkened and the wind blew and the rain began to fall I thought that I should probably go and disconnect the… (FLASH! POW!) …modem.
Cue the fading and erratic static.
The next day I went in search of another modem, and considered that the all modems I had lost to lightning would put a hurt on even the manliest of landfills. Indeed, whenever I have bought a computer in the past I also bought an external modem, knowing that a ‘puter’s built-in modem always goes poof within a week, dying perhaps of shame.
A visit to Giganto-Mart was without success; the misnamed help weren’t much interested and appeared not to know what a modem was anyway. Lots of routers, but I’m not sure I need anything routed just now; if I do, I’ve got a Garmin.
MegaXtreemOffice in Beaumont had no modems; as the young man explained, dial-up modems (or is that modi?) are now as antique as 33 1/3 records and the Edsel, and referred me to my very own cellular service at a kiosk in Happy Meadows Mall.
And there, after lengthy negotiations with a nice fellow named Basil or Sidney or something like that, though the touch of Hindi in his accent suggests that’s not what’s on his birth certificate, I am now wirelessly wired to the outside world.
Okay, my daughter had to help. She didn’t make too much fun of me.
Spending a disconnected evening with a book, the newspaper crossword (Children, your grandparents will explain to you what a newspaper is…), and (gasp) television was okay, but I am happy to resume my usual geek/nerd/anti-social/loser habits. Hey, want to know the temperature in Bombay / Mumbai today?
Neville said that wireless would load really, really, really fast up here in the woods. He was wrong. Only kinda fast. But much better than dial-up.
The best thing of all is that now I can compute anywhere in the house, and will say ‘bye-‘bye to that rather expensive telephone land-line and to the AOL account.
And now I can download videos of Fox News’ Glenn Beck screaming at people who don’t line up in straight rows. Do you get the idea that Glenn Beck was nicer when he was drinking? Glenn Beck – a French expression meaning "change the station."
My fear is that now I will become one of those tiresome people who travels with a computer. I’ll bet Glenn Beck travels with a computer.
The Last Modem standing is now a base for my beautiful old Argus C3 (the famous "Brick") 35mm film camera on display on a bookshelf, still usable some forty years after it was built, a work of art in metal and glass. Don’t you wish computers and their accessories would last that long!
What Did You Do in the War, Mummy?
Mack Hall
Last week Harry Patch, the last British veteran of the Western Front, died at 111. Even at his age he was lucky not to have been conscripted for the current Afghan campaign.
In 2006 a 75-year-old retired American Army surgeon, Colonel William Bernhard, was reactivated – drafted – and sent to Afghanistan. Once upon a time it was the elderly who sent the young to die in far-away wars; now the young are sending the elderly instead. For the elderly, of course, this means they get to go to two or three wars in their lifetimes while the youthful presidents and prime ministers who send them avoid unpleasantness altogether.
Of all the world’s leaders, possibly two have served in uniform. The Pope was drafted into the Wehrmacht when he was sixteen, and the Queen volunteered as an ATS driver when she was the same age. She got her hands dirty and had to take cover in air raids, joining, as Bill Mauldin said, the club of them what has been shot at.
Some delicate souls in our time claim PTSD from having a bad day at the office.
Unfortunately, politicians with clean hands (if not hearts) still want to send other folks and other folks’ children to the wars. Well, I’ve got a solution for that: the next time anyone wants to have a war, the politicians and their kids, young and old, go first. Using Dr. Bernhard, the Pope, and Queen Elizabeth as precedents, the top age will be 75 and the bottom age will be 16.
"But…but…I’m in a wheelchair!" protests white-haired Senator Gloriosous.
"Not a problem, Private Gloriosous," replies Sergeant Rock, "We built ya a ramp to the turret of this here armored car. Yer a machine-gunner now. The war -- sorry, I meant nation-building -- you voted for is right down the street. Get with it."
"Oooooooooooooh! I want to be an officer in a pretty uniform and go to officers’ clubs and dances," coos Congressman Warprofit’s daughter Heather-Misty-Shannon-La’Shan’qua-Dawn.
"Wrong, Private Warprofit," replies Corporal Hardbutt. "You’ve got street patrol in two hours. Right now you’ve got KP. Your pa can help you. Wash all these mess trays."
"But…but…I’m a college graduate! I have an Honors BA in Community Activism with a minor in Serbo-Hungarian Literature!"
"Oh, sorry, Private Warprofit. I didn’t know. Here, I’ll show you and your pa how to wash dishes…"
"I don’t want to go to a beastly war!" pleads Poncy Tworbt, president of the Sidwell Friends School Chess Club. "I don’t wanna! I’m, like, y’know, an intellectual, and, like, stuff! I’m an artist! And a guitarist! I’m forming a band! I’m sensitive. I’m only 16! I just got my first Mercedes-Benz for my birthday! I’m special! Mummy tells me I’m special!"
"Yeah, Seaman Tworbt?" replies CPO Brasso, a career Navy man with his right forefinger locked in a perpetual curve from carrying a coffee cup for 30 years. "Well, yer mummy’s a Congressman, so yer goin’. Ya play chess, ya say? Great, here’s your swab and bucket. Get this boat deck squared away; we got night patrol up a little river they say used to flow from Eden. Sure hot now, in lots of ways. You might live through it. Now get busy."
The President goes too; the commander-in-chief can command from behind some sandbags in 115-degree heat. You think it’s a good war, boss? How good?
In the meantime, each investor in companies with military contracts will receive a private’s pay for the duration of the war.
But what about the ordinary citizens, the folks who have no power to declare a war? Oh, they can go to the wars if they want to: the kid at the feed store, the guy climbing the cracking unit, the lineman, the nurse, the storekeeper, the doctor. Sure, if they want to go. But they don’t have to.
Next time we have a war, the uberklasse can lead us from the front.
Last week Harry Patch, the last British veteran of the Western Front, died at 111. Even at his age he was lucky not to have been conscripted for the current Afghan campaign.
In 2006 a 75-year-old retired American Army surgeon, Colonel William Bernhard, was reactivated – drafted – and sent to Afghanistan. Once upon a time it was the elderly who sent the young to die in far-away wars; now the young are sending the elderly instead. For the elderly, of course, this means they get to go to two or three wars in their lifetimes while the youthful presidents and prime ministers who send them avoid unpleasantness altogether.
Of all the world’s leaders, possibly two have served in uniform. The Pope was drafted into the Wehrmacht when he was sixteen, and the Queen volunteered as an ATS driver when she was the same age. She got her hands dirty and had to take cover in air raids, joining, as Bill Mauldin said, the club of them what has been shot at.
Some delicate souls in our time claim PTSD from having a bad day at the office.
Unfortunately, politicians with clean hands (if not hearts) still want to send other folks and other folks’ children to the wars. Well, I’ve got a solution for that: the next time anyone wants to have a war, the politicians and their kids, young and old, go first. Using Dr. Bernhard, the Pope, and Queen Elizabeth as precedents, the top age will be 75 and the bottom age will be 16.
"But…but…I’m in a wheelchair!" protests white-haired Senator Gloriosous.
"Not a problem, Private Gloriosous," replies Sergeant Rock, "We built ya a ramp to the turret of this here armored car. Yer a machine-gunner now. The war -- sorry, I meant nation-building -- you voted for is right down the street. Get with it."
"Oooooooooooooh! I want to be an officer in a pretty uniform and go to officers’ clubs and dances," coos Congressman Warprofit’s daughter Heather-Misty-Shannon-La’Shan’qua-Dawn.
"Wrong, Private Warprofit," replies Corporal Hardbutt. "You’ve got street patrol in two hours. Right now you’ve got KP. Your pa can help you. Wash all these mess trays."
"But…but…I’m a college graduate! I have an Honors BA in Community Activism with a minor in Serbo-Hungarian Literature!"
"Oh, sorry, Private Warprofit. I didn’t know. Here, I’ll show you and your pa how to wash dishes…"
"I don’t want to go to a beastly war!" pleads Poncy Tworbt, president of the Sidwell Friends School Chess Club. "I don’t wanna! I’m, like, y’know, an intellectual, and, like, stuff! I’m an artist! And a guitarist! I’m forming a band! I’m sensitive. I’m only 16! I just got my first Mercedes-Benz for my birthday! I’m special! Mummy tells me I’m special!"
"Yeah, Seaman Tworbt?" replies CPO Brasso, a career Navy man with his right forefinger locked in a perpetual curve from carrying a coffee cup for 30 years. "Well, yer mummy’s a Congressman, so yer goin’. Ya play chess, ya say? Great, here’s your swab and bucket. Get this boat deck squared away; we got night patrol up a little river they say used to flow from Eden. Sure hot now, in lots of ways. You might live through it. Now get busy."
The President goes too; the commander-in-chief can command from behind some sandbags in 115-degree heat. You think it’s a good war, boss? How good?
In the meantime, each investor in companies with military contracts will receive a private’s pay for the duration of the war.
But what about the ordinary citizens, the folks who have no power to declare a war? Oh, they can go to the wars if they want to: the kid at the feed store, the guy climbing the cracking unit, the lineman, the nurse, the storekeeper, the doctor. Sure, if they want to go. But they don’t have to.
Next time we have a war, the uberklasse can lead us from the front.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Lobsters on a Plane
Mack Hall
So why do the lobsters get to ride for free?
You find your seat with your small carry-on, sit as assigned as part of the herd, and then observe that while United Air Lines has required you to pay $20 to check your suitcase, other passengers are entering the cabin with bags larger than the one you checked, multiple bags, and even large cardboard boxes containing lobsters. Live lobsters. Critters. All for free.
In Halifax, Nova Scotia a shop in the airport sells live lobsters to the sort of people who wear God Bless the USA baseball caps made in China: “Look what I brought ya from Canada, honey – a live lobster!”
Oh, yeah, a clicking, clacking crustacean. Just what everyone wants as a souvenir.
Not only does United Air Lines interpret their own baggage rules loosely, so does the United States government. Everyone entering the country must complete and sign a form stating that he is not bringing in any agricultural products or varmints. So what’s with ignoring the lobsters?
Did the lobsters have to sign a document stating that they were not bringing any parts of humans into the USA?
Is there a possibility of Mad Lobster Disease?
Are the lobsters patted and wanded? Do they have to take off their little claws while scuttling through the metal detector?
And speaking of claws, if I can’t bring my little Swiss Army knife on board, why aren’t the lobsters disarmed too? Could this be part of a plot? Is Dr. Doom lulling us to sleep with real lobsters and waiting to take over a United States aircraft with evil robot lobsters sold through a secret agent pretending to be an ‘umble dealer in live food at the Halifax airport?
The poor cabin attendants on airplanes have to deal with all the humans, excess luggage, and lobsters, trying to close the cheap plastic hatches on too many bulging bags and boxes. During the flight folks get up and open the hatches to let their excess junk drop on other folks below them.
AT DFW the lobsters got off all right, but United Air Lines whimsically offloaded the checked luggage at diverse places. When I and my party finally found ours, no one was watching it and no one asked for our claim checks. Anyone could have walked out of the airport with my dirty shirts and my loose loonies and toonies.
Shame on you, American Air Lines. Your baggage-handling practices stink as badly as those lobsters. I want my money back.
What really happens to the lobsters who were carried out past the baggage carousels with no delay? Do happy spouses or significant others clap their hands in glee and exclaim “Oh, wait until I show this exoskeletonal varmint to the neighbors!”?
Are the children sent to take their new little friend Sparky to the back yard to play?
“But Daddy, I wanted a Sergeant Preston of the Yukon action figure with a machine gun and a rocket launcher!”
“Sorry, son; Canada ran out of Mounties, but I brought you this swell lobster!”
Does the United States Department of Agriculture send a S.W.A.T. team based on a neighbor’s anonymous ‘phone call about unregistered foreign livestock?
I heard a rumor that next year halifax is going to upstage Pamplona with an annual running of the lobsters down Water Street, past Tim Horton’s, and down to Murphy’s Wharf, eh. Any fatalities will be carried out to sea on Theodore Tugboat and dumped into the water at George Lighthouse with full military honors.
Either that or stuffed into the overhead bins on United Air Lines
So why do the lobsters get to ride for free?
You find your seat with your small carry-on, sit as assigned as part of the herd, and then observe that while United Air Lines has required you to pay $20 to check your suitcase, other passengers are entering the cabin with bags larger than the one you checked, multiple bags, and even large cardboard boxes containing lobsters. Live lobsters. Critters. All for free.
In Halifax, Nova Scotia a shop in the airport sells live lobsters to the sort of people who wear God Bless the USA baseball caps made in China: “Look what I brought ya from Canada, honey – a live lobster!”
Oh, yeah, a clicking, clacking crustacean. Just what everyone wants as a souvenir.
Not only does United Air Lines interpret their own baggage rules loosely, so does the United States government. Everyone entering the country must complete and sign a form stating that he is not bringing in any agricultural products or varmints. So what’s with ignoring the lobsters?
Did the lobsters have to sign a document stating that they were not bringing any parts of humans into the USA?
Is there a possibility of Mad Lobster Disease?
Are the lobsters patted and wanded? Do they have to take off their little claws while scuttling through the metal detector?
And speaking of claws, if I can’t bring my little Swiss Army knife on board, why aren’t the lobsters disarmed too? Could this be part of a plot? Is Dr. Doom lulling us to sleep with real lobsters and waiting to take over a United States aircraft with evil robot lobsters sold through a secret agent pretending to be an ‘umble dealer in live food at the Halifax airport?
The poor cabin attendants on airplanes have to deal with all the humans, excess luggage, and lobsters, trying to close the cheap plastic hatches on too many bulging bags and boxes. During the flight folks get up and open the hatches to let their excess junk drop on other folks below them.
AT DFW the lobsters got off all right, but United Air Lines whimsically offloaded the checked luggage at diverse places. When I and my party finally found ours, no one was watching it and no one asked for our claim checks. Anyone could have walked out of the airport with my dirty shirts and my loose loonies and toonies.
Shame on you, American Air Lines. Your baggage-handling practices stink as badly as those lobsters. I want my money back.
What really happens to the lobsters who were carried out past the baggage carousels with no delay? Do happy spouses or significant others clap their hands in glee and exclaim “Oh, wait until I show this exoskeletonal varmint to the neighbors!”?
Are the children sent to take their new little friend Sparky to the back yard to play?
“But Daddy, I wanted a Sergeant Preston of the Yukon action figure with a machine gun and a rocket launcher!”
“Sorry, son; Canada ran out of Mounties, but I brought you this swell lobster!”
Does the United States Department of Agriculture send a S.W.A.T. team based on a neighbor’s anonymous ‘phone call about unregistered foreign livestock?
I heard a rumor that next year halifax is going to upstage Pamplona with an annual running of the lobsters down Water Street, past Tim Horton’s, and down to Murphy’s Wharf, eh. Any fatalities will be carried out to sea on Theodore Tugboat and dumped into the water at George Lighthouse with full military honors.
Either that or stuffed into the overhead bins on United Air Lines
Sunday, June 28, 2009
"Scope for Imagination" -- Anne of Green Gables
Mack Hall
In anticipation of a brief visit to Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province, I was advised by several people to read L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.
Oh, sure, and maybe I should also play with Barbie and Ken dolls dressed as Tim Horton’s servers in order to acculturate.
In the event, I read Anne of Green Gables, and liked it. Sure, it’s a girlie book in much the same way that Tom Sawyer is a boyie book, but with far fewer real adventures and better character development.
Set in Prince Edward Island around 1900, Anne is the fictional story of a very talkative and imaginative eleven-year-old orphan girl accidentally adopted (they wanted a boy to help with the farm) by a stern old maid and her bachelor brother. The narrative shows Anne growing up from eleven to sixteen – in 1900 an eleven-year-old was a child; a sixteen-year-old was an adult. Adolescence, we often forget, is a recent sociological construct. As an eleven-year-old Anne is a dreamer, a maker of mistakes, and a true drama princess. As a sixteen-year-old Anne is a graduate of a one-year preparation program and a teacher. Montgomery’s characterization of Anne is brilliant; the child’s unbroken, page-long babblings mature seamlessly over the years into an eloquence seldom to be found in today’s world of thirty-somethings jibbering in neo-valley-speak.
The stern Presbyterian couple, Marilla and Matthew, quite set in their ways, find their lives much changed by the rambunctious, dreamy Anne. If a mistake can be made, Anne is sure to make it, despite her best intentions in all things, and home, school, church, and the little town of Avonlea are all given “scope for imagination” (Anne’s trademark phrase) repeatedly.
Since Marilla and Matthew are Presbyterians, Christmas is not observed. They give Anne a new dress before breakfast, uncomfortable even with this slight concession to the day, and then Anne goes off to school as usual.
The Acadians are barely mentioned at all; a neighboring family has a slow, stupid French housemaid, and one summer Matthew hires a slow, stupid French boy for help with the farm work. These caricatures are briefly noted and then disappear from the narrative. Montgomery barely mentions the French subculture because it was barely a part of her segregated world, or Anne’s. Even now a perusal of place names in the Maritimes in a general encyclopedia will often state, with no irony, that a given settlement began when the Acadians were expelled.
In the end, as Anne leaves at fifteen to be trained as a teacher, Marilla says “I just couldn’t help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways…and I just got lonesome thinking it all over.”
Shy Matthew simply says to the stars on a summer night “She’s smart and pretty, and loving, too which is better than all the rest. She’s been a blessing to us…It was Providence, because the Almighty saw we needed her, I reckon.”
C. S. Lewis said that a children’s book that could not be enjoyed by an adult wasn’t worth anything as a children’s book. So it is with Anne of Green Gables. Women who read it as girls grow almost misty-eyed in their happy memories when Anne is mentioned. A surprising number of men have read it too. In Japan the Anne books are studied as literature; in Canada they are simply enjoyed. And enjoyment is the best use of literature, a good book read by a child under the trees of summer with no tiresome adult about to critique the book or the child.
In anticipation of a brief visit to Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province, I was advised by several people to read L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.
Oh, sure, and maybe I should also play with Barbie and Ken dolls dressed as Tim Horton’s servers in order to acculturate.
In the event, I read Anne of Green Gables, and liked it. Sure, it’s a girlie book in much the same way that Tom Sawyer is a boyie book, but with far fewer real adventures and better character development.
Set in Prince Edward Island around 1900, Anne is the fictional story of a very talkative and imaginative eleven-year-old orphan girl accidentally adopted (they wanted a boy to help with the farm) by a stern old maid and her bachelor brother. The narrative shows Anne growing up from eleven to sixteen – in 1900 an eleven-year-old was a child; a sixteen-year-old was an adult. Adolescence, we often forget, is a recent sociological construct. As an eleven-year-old Anne is a dreamer, a maker of mistakes, and a true drama princess. As a sixteen-year-old Anne is a graduate of a one-year preparation program and a teacher. Montgomery’s characterization of Anne is brilliant; the child’s unbroken, page-long babblings mature seamlessly over the years into an eloquence seldom to be found in today’s world of thirty-somethings jibbering in neo-valley-speak.
The stern Presbyterian couple, Marilla and Matthew, quite set in their ways, find their lives much changed by the rambunctious, dreamy Anne. If a mistake can be made, Anne is sure to make it, despite her best intentions in all things, and home, school, church, and the little town of Avonlea are all given “scope for imagination” (Anne’s trademark phrase) repeatedly.
Since Marilla and Matthew are Presbyterians, Christmas is not observed. They give Anne a new dress before breakfast, uncomfortable even with this slight concession to the day, and then Anne goes off to school as usual.
The Acadians are barely mentioned at all; a neighboring family has a slow, stupid French housemaid, and one summer Matthew hires a slow, stupid French boy for help with the farm work. These caricatures are briefly noted and then disappear from the narrative. Montgomery barely mentions the French subculture because it was barely a part of her segregated world, or Anne’s. Even now a perusal of place names in the Maritimes in a general encyclopedia will often state, with no irony, that a given settlement began when the Acadians were expelled.
In the end, as Anne leaves at fifteen to be trained as a teacher, Marilla says “I just couldn’t help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways…and I just got lonesome thinking it all over.”
Shy Matthew simply says to the stars on a summer night “She’s smart and pretty, and loving, too which is better than all the rest. She’s been a blessing to us…It was Providence, because the Almighty saw we needed her, I reckon.”
C. S. Lewis said that a children’s book that could not be enjoyed by an adult wasn’t worth anything as a children’s book. So it is with Anne of Green Gables. Women who read it as girls grow almost misty-eyed in their happy memories when Anne is mentioned. A surprising number of men have read it too. In Japan the Anne books are studied as literature; in Canada they are simply enjoyed. And enjoyment is the best use of literature, a good book read by a child under the trees of summer with no tiresome adult about to critique the book or the child.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Taxpayer! There's a Fly in my Soup!
Mack Hall
I was raised on a farm, a real farm, not a weekend play-farm, and fresh food around the seasons was always a part of my childhood. I didn’t appreciate it. Once upon a time I rejected something that was placed before me at the kitchen table: blackeyed peas, perhaps, or collard greens.
“Each your supper,” my father said, “there are children starving in China who would love to have those peas.”
I replied in the insolence of youth with “Well, they can have mine.”
I still feel the pain. There are just some things you don’t say about food to folks raised in the Depression.
Terry Nichols, one of Timothy McVeigh’s conspirators in the murder of 168 people, including children, is suing you and me because he doesn’t like the food placed before him in prison.
And since Mr. Nichols is a federal prisoner (folks still tend to disapprove of murder), the working American must pay for the lawyers Mr. Nichols will use to sue the working American.
Mr. Nichols, who suffers a delicate digestive system and an acute sensitivity in regard to theological issues, maintains that the lack of whole grains and fresh food is causing him to sin against God.
Maybe Mr. Nichols finds sin in food grown with ammonium nitrate and delivered to the prison in a rented truck.
Perhaps the prison television has been showing the Food Network. God know what might happen if they start broadcasting Bridezillas.
If Mr. Nichols wants to be treated as if he were in daycare, he shouldn’t have blown up a daycare. After all, only licensed physicians are permitted to kill children, at some $10,000 a head.
Perhaps the lawsuit will be adjudicated at the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City.
There is no way of knowing how many American children starved to death in the Great Depression. Such really happened, and the survivors are reluctant to talk about it. Any American child in those terrible years would have been very happy to have Terry Nichols’ supper then; children in the Sudan would be very happy to have it today.
Because of Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh, some thirty or forty children in Oklahoma City did not live to make whiny faces at the supper table at the risk of a good spanking.
If this matter comes to adjudication, the thoughtful, reflective, working American must hope that the thoughtful, reflective, working judge will listen carefully to sensitive Mr. Nichols’ petition, consider it carefully, look at Mr. Nichols, and say “No. Next case.”
I was raised on a farm, a real farm, not a weekend play-farm, and fresh food around the seasons was always a part of my childhood. I didn’t appreciate it. Once upon a time I rejected something that was placed before me at the kitchen table: blackeyed peas, perhaps, or collard greens.
“Each your supper,” my father said, “there are children starving in China who would love to have those peas.”
I replied in the insolence of youth with “Well, they can have mine.”
I still feel the pain. There are just some things you don’t say about food to folks raised in the Depression.
Terry Nichols, one of Timothy McVeigh’s conspirators in the murder of 168 people, including children, is suing you and me because he doesn’t like the food placed before him in prison.
And since Mr. Nichols is a federal prisoner (folks still tend to disapprove of murder), the working American must pay for the lawyers Mr. Nichols will use to sue the working American.
Mr. Nichols, who suffers a delicate digestive system and an acute sensitivity in regard to theological issues, maintains that the lack of whole grains and fresh food is causing him to sin against God.
Maybe Mr. Nichols finds sin in food grown with ammonium nitrate and delivered to the prison in a rented truck.
Perhaps the prison television has been showing the Food Network. God know what might happen if they start broadcasting Bridezillas.
If Mr. Nichols wants to be treated as if he were in daycare, he shouldn’t have blown up a daycare. After all, only licensed physicians are permitted to kill children, at some $10,000 a head.
Perhaps the lawsuit will be adjudicated at the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City.
There is no way of knowing how many American children starved to death in the Great Depression. Such really happened, and the survivors are reluctant to talk about it. Any American child in those terrible years would have been very happy to have Terry Nichols’ supper then; children in the Sudan would be very happy to have it today.
Because of Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh, some thirty or forty children in Oklahoma City did not live to make whiny faces at the supper table at the risk of a good spanking.
If this matter comes to adjudication, the thoughtful, reflective, working American must hope that the thoughtful, reflective, working judge will listen carefully to sensitive Mr. Nichols’ petition, consider it carefully, look at Mr. Nichols, and say “No. Next case.”
Monday, June 22, 2009
"I Been"
Mack Hall
King Vidor’s Northwest Passage (1940) dramatizes an English guerilla campaign against Quebec during the Seven Years’ War. Although both sides claimed victory at Saint Francis / Sainte Francois in 1759, the long retreat of the Rangers under French pressure was a disaster.
At the end of the film the reconstituted Rangers are sent on another expedition, and as they march out of town the local taverner asks a stay-behind veteran of the Saint Francis raid, Hunk Marriner (Walter Brennan), "Ain’t you goin’?” Hunk replies laconically “I been,” and returns to his refreshing beverage.
For the past week the television viewers of the world have been watching two bits of drama: a great many of the citizens of Teheran protesting the outcome of an election they knew was rigged before going into it, and a great many citizens of other great cities of the world demanding that the U.N. (meaning 19-year-old Americans) be sent in to do something about it.
Nope. Not this time. Let the Chinese or the Swiss send their 19-year-olds to die in Iran if they wish.
Let us consider the losing side in the recent elections. No candidate stands for election in Iran without the approval of the mullets. Mir Hossein Mousavi ran for president as a tool of the mullets, and was bitterly disappointed when the votes – meaning the mullets – said that the current chief stooge, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, won by a Russian-style landslide. Mr. Mousavi then set off a week of rioting in Teheran, and although a number of young Iranians have been killed by the Revolutionary Guard, Mr. Mousavi is quite safe and will remain so. As with so many amateur dictators, he will demand that his followers fight to the last bullet and the last drop of blood, said demands probably to be made from a five-star hotel resort and golf course in France or the USA.
Iran doesn’t like us. Oh, boo-hoo. If not for British oil development in the 1940s Iran would be nothing more than a sort of Newark, New Jersey, only with more sand and less charm. Iranians under the Shah didn’t like us. Iranians under the Ayatollah Khomeini didn’t like us. Iranians under Ayatolla Khameni don’t like us. Whatever thug-ocracy in Teheran is to come won’t change anything much – and Iranians won’t like us. Iran will never be a democracy and will never be friendly.
In Paris, people demonstrating in the streets demand that the U.N. (meaning 19-year-old Americans) do something about Iran.
In New York, people demonstrating in the streets demand that the U.N. (meaning 19-year-old Americans) do something about Iran.
In Los Angeles, people demonstrating in the streets demand that the U.N. (meaning 19-year-old Americans) do something about Iran.
And a great many of those people demanding that the U.N. (meaning 19-year-old Americans) do something about Iran are Iranians.
Iranians in exile don’t appear to be asking for weapons or assistance so that they can go back to Iran and do something.
Iranians in exile don’t appear to be requiring themselves to give up their jobs, their businesses, their comfy lifestyles to do anything about the country they fled; they appear to want Americans to fight and die and suffer for Iran.
And without a doubt the moment a pair of American boots touch the sacred soil of Iran (where suddenly every city will be a holy city), the wearer of those American boots will be charged with war crimes by some European (meaning Belgium) court with no clear mission except to keep itself in existence.
Isolationism has not been fashionable since the 1930s, when non-intervention allowed Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, and Stalin to parcel the world among themselves (let us never forget that the Communists and the Nazis were great pals well into World War II). Resolving that this should never happen again, the post-war world saw the Western nations involved in a confused and often contradictory series of intrusions into the affairs of other nations. To what extent these were successful cannot be known; in retrospect we can be sure that if the French and British had in good time suppressed Hitler’s occupation of Alsace and the Sudetenland, the French and British would have been judged by the world to be oppressors.
Except when the North Koreans are doing weird things with missiles and nukes, the South Koreans hate us. Same for the Japanese. Indonesia. Afghanistan. Iraq (the Iraqis and the U.N. begged the U.S. to intervene, remember?). Taiwan. Cuba. Serbia. Bosnia. The hopeless city of New Orleans.
No, maybe it’s time for the United States to practice a little healthy isolationism and give up letting other nations, who despise us anyway, kill our nineteen-year-olds and our economy. The United States, in endeavoring to do good, has wrecked itself. Switzerland, one of the most evil nations in the world, one which never met a bloody tyrant with whom it could not cut a profitable deal, has never made a point of helping any nation in need, and yet prospers.
Maybe it’s time for the United States to skip a campaign, telling those who demand much too much of us, “No, thanks. I been.”
King Vidor’s Northwest Passage (1940) dramatizes an English guerilla campaign against Quebec during the Seven Years’ War. Although both sides claimed victory at Saint Francis / Sainte Francois in 1759, the long retreat of the Rangers under French pressure was a disaster.
At the end of the film the reconstituted Rangers are sent on another expedition, and as they march out of town the local taverner asks a stay-behind veteran of the Saint Francis raid, Hunk Marriner (Walter Brennan), "Ain’t you goin’?” Hunk replies laconically “I been,” and returns to his refreshing beverage.
For the past week the television viewers of the world have been watching two bits of drama: a great many of the citizens of Teheran protesting the outcome of an election they knew was rigged before going into it, and a great many citizens of other great cities of the world demanding that the U.N. (meaning 19-year-old Americans) be sent in to do something about it.
Nope. Not this time. Let the Chinese or the Swiss send their 19-year-olds to die in Iran if they wish.
Let us consider the losing side in the recent elections. No candidate stands for election in Iran without the approval of the mullets. Mir Hossein Mousavi ran for president as a tool of the mullets, and was bitterly disappointed when the votes – meaning the mullets – said that the current chief stooge, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, won by a Russian-style landslide. Mr. Mousavi then set off a week of rioting in Teheran, and although a number of young Iranians have been killed by the Revolutionary Guard, Mr. Mousavi is quite safe and will remain so. As with so many amateur dictators, he will demand that his followers fight to the last bullet and the last drop of blood, said demands probably to be made from a five-star hotel resort and golf course in France or the USA.
Iran doesn’t like us. Oh, boo-hoo. If not for British oil development in the 1940s Iran would be nothing more than a sort of Newark, New Jersey, only with more sand and less charm. Iranians under the Shah didn’t like us. Iranians under the Ayatollah Khomeini didn’t like us. Iranians under Ayatolla Khameni don’t like us. Whatever thug-ocracy in Teheran is to come won’t change anything much – and Iranians won’t like us. Iran will never be a democracy and will never be friendly.
In Paris, people demonstrating in the streets demand that the U.N. (meaning 19-year-old Americans) do something about Iran.
In New York, people demonstrating in the streets demand that the U.N. (meaning 19-year-old Americans) do something about Iran.
In Los Angeles, people demonstrating in the streets demand that the U.N. (meaning 19-year-old Americans) do something about Iran.
And a great many of those people demanding that the U.N. (meaning 19-year-old Americans) do something about Iran are Iranians.
Iranians in exile don’t appear to be asking for weapons or assistance so that they can go back to Iran and do something.
Iranians in exile don’t appear to be requiring themselves to give up their jobs, their businesses, their comfy lifestyles to do anything about the country they fled; they appear to want Americans to fight and die and suffer for Iran.
And without a doubt the moment a pair of American boots touch the sacred soil of Iran (where suddenly every city will be a holy city), the wearer of those American boots will be charged with war crimes by some European (meaning Belgium) court with no clear mission except to keep itself in existence.
Isolationism has not been fashionable since the 1930s, when non-intervention allowed Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, and Stalin to parcel the world among themselves (let us never forget that the Communists and the Nazis were great pals well into World War II). Resolving that this should never happen again, the post-war world saw the Western nations involved in a confused and often contradictory series of intrusions into the affairs of other nations. To what extent these were successful cannot be known; in retrospect we can be sure that if the French and British had in good time suppressed Hitler’s occupation of Alsace and the Sudetenland, the French and British would have been judged by the world to be oppressors.
Except when the North Koreans are doing weird things with missiles and nukes, the South Koreans hate us. Same for the Japanese. Indonesia. Afghanistan. Iraq (the Iraqis and the U.N. begged the U.S. to intervene, remember?). Taiwan. Cuba. Serbia. Bosnia. The hopeless city of New Orleans.
No, maybe it’s time for the United States to practice a little healthy isolationism and give up letting other nations, who despise us anyway, kill our nineteen-year-olds and our economy. The United States, in endeavoring to do good, has wrecked itself. Switzerland, one of the most evil nations in the world, one which never met a bloody tyrant with whom it could not cut a profitable deal, has never made a point of helping any nation in need, and yet prospers.
Maybe it’s time for the United States to skip a campaign, telling those who demand much too much of us, “No, thanks. I been.”
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Buying a Wash Stand
This morning I had occasion to buy a "vanity" (nee' wash stand) at Lowe's in Jasper, and enjoyed talking with Kenneth, a happy geezer my age who has no business climbing ladders.
Anyway, he and I both wondered whether the vanity (does it preen before itself?) contained a sink, and Kenneth asked if it was okay if he opened the box.
Well, sure.
He explained that several days ago he had sold a lady a nice lamp, and she had asked him to open the box to make sure the lamp was like the picture and that all the parts were there. Everything was fine, and Kenneth closed the box and began to place it in the lady's shopping cart.
"Oh, no," she protested, "not that one; it's been opened."
Anyway, he and I both wondered whether the vanity (does it preen before itself?) contained a sink, and Kenneth asked if it was okay if he opened the box.
Well, sure.
He explained that several days ago he had sold a lady a nice lamp, and she had asked him to open the box to make sure the lamp was like the picture and that all the parts were there. Everything was fine, and Kenneth closed the box and began to place it in the lady's shopping cart.
"Oh, no," she protested, "not that one; it's been opened."
Sunday, June 14, 2009
A Man Could Stand Up
Mack Hall
A Man Could Stand Up is the third novel in Ford Madox Ford’s World War I tetralogy, Parade’s End. The phrase “a man could stand up” is employed repeatedly as an allusion to life and death in the trenches, and with multiple meanings. In trench warfare to stand up is to die, and so the desire to stand up symbolizes a hope for an end to the war. At other times in the novel the phrase means doing that which is brave and right.
On Tuesday, 11 June 2009, a man named Stephen Johns stood up for civilization, for us. Opening the door as a kindness to an elderly man, the sorry ess of a bee responded to this courtesy by shooting Mr. Johns in the chest. He never had a chance.
Stephen Johns was a security guard for the Holocaust Museum in our nation’s capital. Contrary to the stereotype of the rent-a-cop, Mr. Johns was a trained professional and a certified peace officer. So were his two backups, who quickly and efficiently returned fire and saved the lives of uncounted innocents. The one life they could not save was that of their comrade.
Questions have been asked about the motives of the gutless murderer; more needful questions should be asked about the motives of Stephen Johns. Evil is as common as bitterweeds; a man who stands up for what is right rather less so.
So I would like to know more about Stephen Johns. At least two writers alluded to Mr. Johns as a “gentle giant,” an appellation which is as condescending as it is trite. They should not have written such drivel. Mr. Johns was a man, not a cliché.
We know that Mr. Johns was 39, had a wife and a son, loved the Washington Redskins (hey, no one’s perfect), and was liked and respected by his co-workers.
I don't know much else about Stephen Johns, and I would like to. I want to know who his pals were, what jokes he made about his boss, who he ate lunch with, what books influenced him, if he sneaked a cigarette during his break, if he flirted with the receptionist, what kind of coffee he preferred, what kind of music he liked, and what his dreams were.
I know little more than this: Stephen Johns died while protecting other people and the truth of history. His death means that others will continue to live, to meditate upon evil and upon the good men who stand up to evil, and may God give us the grace to understand that. Mr. Johns lived and died in order to save the truth of history for all of us, a truth malevolent people deny. I doubt if he woke up the other morning imagining that he would die as a hero of civilization, but that is what happened, and we should honor his memory as an American hero.
A man could stand up. Stephen Johns did.
A Man Could Stand Up is the third novel in Ford Madox Ford’s World War I tetralogy, Parade’s End. The phrase “a man could stand up” is employed repeatedly as an allusion to life and death in the trenches, and with multiple meanings. In trench warfare to stand up is to die, and so the desire to stand up symbolizes a hope for an end to the war. At other times in the novel the phrase means doing that which is brave and right.
On Tuesday, 11 June 2009, a man named Stephen Johns stood up for civilization, for us. Opening the door as a kindness to an elderly man, the sorry ess of a bee responded to this courtesy by shooting Mr. Johns in the chest. He never had a chance.
Stephen Johns was a security guard for the Holocaust Museum in our nation’s capital. Contrary to the stereotype of the rent-a-cop, Mr. Johns was a trained professional and a certified peace officer. So were his two backups, who quickly and efficiently returned fire and saved the lives of uncounted innocents. The one life they could not save was that of their comrade.
Questions have been asked about the motives of the gutless murderer; more needful questions should be asked about the motives of Stephen Johns. Evil is as common as bitterweeds; a man who stands up for what is right rather less so.
So I would like to know more about Stephen Johns. At least two writers alluded to Mr. Johns as a “gentle giant,” an appellation which is as condescending as it is trite. They should not have written such drivel. Mr. Johns was a man, not a cliché.
We know that Mr. Johns was 39, had a wife and a son, loved the Washington Redskins (hey, no one’s perfect), and was liked and respected by his co-workers.
I don't know much else about Stephen Johns, and I would like to. I want to know who his pals were, what jokes he made about his boss, who he ate lunch with, what books influenced him, if he sneaked a cigarette during his break, if he flirted with the receptionist, what kind of coffee he preferred, what kind of music he liked, and what his dreams were.
I know little more than this: Stephen Johns died while protecting other people and the truth of history. His death means that others will continue to live, to meditate upon evil and upon the good men who stand up to evil, and may God give us the grace to understand that. Mr. Johns lived and died in order to save the truth of history for all of us, a truth malevolent people deny. I doubt if he woke up the other morning imagining that he would die as a hero of civilization, but that is what happened, and we should honor his memory as an American hero.
A man could stand up. Stephen Johns did.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Dan Rather Wants Our Children
Mack Hall
Like Rasputin’s bloated corpse bobbing up among the ice floes of the Nevka River, Dan Rather has surfaced again.
On the occasion of his latest apparition he wants our children.
In an article syndicated by Hearst, Rather, the famous documents expert, coyly asks if it would not be in the best interests of unity that all young people be conscripted into the military or into some sort of vague “national service.”
Conscription. Press gangs. The draft. Forced labor. Hitler Youth. Young Pioneers. The concept that a human is completely at the disposal of the State is a European idea, not an American one. America has occasionally violated the spirit of its own Constitution and impressed people into the military: the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and, inexcusably, for some 28 years following 1945. Even so, during World War II the draft was more of a management tool than a bludgeon: “Wait your turn; we’ll tell you when we need you.”
But even in a national emergency, conscription is never a good idea.
Conscription is an unconstitutional wrong forced upon the young and the poor by the old and the rich. A child of Congress or of Wall Street is no more likely to be found in a recruit barracks than is a copy of The Federalist Papers.
But Dan Rather wants the government to herd our children and grandchildren into barracks and labor camps. For what reason? To sing Woody Guthrie songs or perhaps The Internationale before huge images of Ted Kennedy? To be required to chant Dear Leader’s recent assertion that America is now a Muslim nation? To dig canals by hand? To be posted to the streets of Chicago to hand out A.C.O.R.N. propaganda?
The toadious Dan Rather subscribes to a benign but incomplete concept of Old Army Buddies – that people of different backgrounds drafted into the Army got to know each other better, and so made a better America.
Well, maybe, but that’s a specious argument that could be made of concentration camps, too. If a stuffy Belgian banker and an ‘umble Dutch janitor share a good conversation together while breaking rocks for a road project, that conversation is not a good argument for the existence of concentration camps.
Am I comparing conscription to concentration camps? Yes, to a not-very-limited extent. When people are forcibly removed from their homes and occupations and put behind the wire into a situation of regimentation with a system of punishments for not adapting to the new order, they have been deprived of the whole basis of the Declaration of Independence, the God-given right of self-determination.
I know lots of fine young people who are off to the military this summer. We can be immensely proud of them because they choose to do so. Another young man of my acquaintance spent the first week after his high school graduation helping teach Vacation Bible School; after that he’s going to work until college in the autumn. Work is probably his choice, but then I know his mom and dad; they’re not into letting their kids loaf around as house guests. And yet another young man brought me my fast-cholesterol at the drive-in the other evening. Good for them. They don’t even know who Dan Rather is; I don’t expect that they would want him or any other old flatulent ideologue ordering them into the camps for the good of the State.
Our recent presidents have been doing a czar thing – energy czars, car czars, and now a salary czar. What next, a children’s-camp czar? We don’t want no stinking czars. We don’t want our children seized by the State, either.
If Dan Rather likes internment camps so much, let him build himself a barbed-wire fence, sentence himself behind it, stand himself to attention two or three times a day, and count himself.
-30-
Like Rasputin’s bloated corpse bobbing up among the ice floes of the Nevka River, Dan Rather has surfaced again.
On the occasion of his latest apparition he wants our children.
In an article syndicated by Hearst, Rather, the famous documents expert, coyly asks if it would not be in the best interests of unity that all young people be conscripted into the military or into some sort of vague “national service.”
Conscription. Press gangs. The draft. Forced labor. Hitler Youth. Young Pioneers. The concept that a human is completely at the disposal of the State is a European idea, not an American one. America has occasionally violated the spirit of its own Constitution and impressed people into the military: the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and, inexcusably, for some 28 years following 1945. Even so, during World War II the draft was more of a management tool than a bludgeon: “Wait your turn; we’ll tell you when we need you.”
But even in a national emergency, conscription is never a good idea.
Conscription is an unconstitutional wrong forced upon the young and the poor by the old and the rich. A child of Congress or of Wall Street is no more likely to be found in a recruit barracks than is a copy of The Federalist Papers.
But Dan Rather wants the government to herd our children and grandchildren into barracks and labor camps. For what reason? To sing Woody Guthrie songs or perhaps The Internationale before huge images of Ted Kennedy? To be required to chant Dear Leader’s recent assertion that America is now a Muslim nation? To dig canals by hand? To be posted to the streets of Chicago to hand out A.C.O.R.N. propaganda?
The toadious Dan Rather subscribes to a benign but incomplete concept of Old Army Buddies – that people of different backgrounds drafted into the Army got to know each other better, and so made a better America.
Well, maybe, but that’s a specious argument that could be made of concentration camps, too. If a stuffy Belgian banker and an ‘umble Dutch janitor share a good conversation together while breaking rocks for a road project, that conversation is not a good argument for the existence of concentration camps.
Am I comparing conscription to concentration camps? Yes, to a not-very-limited extent. When people are forcibly removed from their homes and occupations and put behind the wire into a situation of regimentation with a system of punishments for not adapting to the new order, they have been deprived of the whole basis of the Declaration of Independence, the God-given right of self-determination.
I know lots of fine young people who are off to the military this summer. We can be immensely proud of them because they choose to do so. Another young man of my acquaintance spent the first week after his high school graduation helping teach Vacation Bible School; after that he’s going to work until college in the autumn. Work is probably his choice, but then I know his mom and dad; they’re not into letting their kids loaf around as house guests. And yet another young man brought me my fast-cholesterol at the drive-in the other evening. Good for them. They don’t even know who Dan Rather is; I don’t expect that they would want him or any other old flatulent ideologue ordering them into the camps for the good of the State.
Our recent presidents have been doing a czar thing – energy czars, car czars, and now a salary czar. What next, a children’s-camp czar? We don’t want no stinking czars. We don’t want our children seized by the State, either.
If Dan Rather likes internment camps so much, let him build himself a barbed-wire fence, sentence himself behind it, stand himself to attention two or three times a day, and count himself.
-30-
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Kim Jong Il's Twitter
Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Kim Jong Il’s Twitter
My Twits: Bashar, Hu, Lula, Hugo, Umar, Vladimir, Triet, Robert, Saddamn (channeled via Jane), The Shadow, and Mickey.
12:10 A.M. OMG Obama is like so not my BFF!!!!!!!
12:14. OMG a note from the imperialist yankee state department. Obama is so like my BFF again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanx for the Hillary poster dude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! U rok!!!!
12:32. OMG like I got a new toy – nuclear missiles! Like, I’m so not going to have More-Than-Supreme General Park shot now cuz I fell better!!!! Oooooo this is so better than viagra!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:11. OMG Saddamn that was so NOT funny about “power-lift shoes.” U no I got bad ankles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My doctor said so the one I accidentally had shot not the one I got now!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:15. OMG okay like the nxt time im having a bad day I’m like so going to nuke shanghai!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:17. OMG Hu that was so like a joke u no & that thing about my hair being taller than the rest of me was so not kool!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:20. OMG Hu u no your my homeboy BFF 4-ever!!!!!!!!!!!!! That correspondence with Obama was just pity for him ok???????????????
1:22. OMG I just remembrd my nuke missiles bring on the jade girls!!!!
1:23. OMG that octomom is such a hottie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:24. OMG Hugo do you h8 Amerika as much as i do??????????
1:26. OMG me 2 hugo I line up my star wars dolls and label Darth Vadar “Amerika” and Luke Skywalker “me” xcept whn im feeling u no special and then I label Princess Leia “me.” But keep it a secret ok!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:30. OMG no Robert hugo SO lies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:31. OMG Hugo you crossed your heart & promised not to tell!!!!!!!!!!!!!! U are so NOT my BFF now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:33. OMG u people stop making short jokes & princess leia jokes now I MEAN IT I got nuke missiles now IM DA MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2:00. OMG like u no I had a cabinet meeting & had some counterrevolutionaries shot it was so kool seeing them begging for their lives thatz why they call me Dear Leader. Ok like I got nukes now so Im wearing THE BIG-BOY PANTS just like Obama so he’s got to be my BFF for now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2:05. OMG so lik im going to wear a seahawks cap back’ards I’ll look soooo coooool!!!!!!!!!!
2:06. OMG r maybe Ill wear my Special Forces Colonel uniform with the mossy oaf cammo pattern & my silver-plated ak-47 special Lenin model with the picture of princess Leia on the stock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2:10. OMG did I tell u guys about my nuke missiles!!!!!! I am like so SOMEBODY now and they got to RESPECT me!!!!!!
2:15. OMG its so 215 in the morning so I am so ready for bed now with my Mickey on my pillow and my Princess Leia on the other side of my pillow and my fairy princess nite lite and my guards all tall and handsome outside my door & a special fone by my bed that connects me directly to my big nuke missiles I feel so snug and special nitey-nites!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mhall46184@aol.com
Kim Jong Il’s Twitter
My Twits: Bashar, Hu, Lula, Hugo, Umar, Vladimir, Triet, Robert, Saddamn (channeled via Jane), The Shadow, and Mickey.
12:10 A.M. OMG Obama is like so not my BFF!!!!!!!
12:14. OMG a note from the imperialist yankee state department. Obama is so like my BFF again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanx for the Hillary poster dude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! U rok!!!!
12:32. OMG like I got a new toy – nuclear missiles! Like, I’m so not going to have More-Than-Supreme General Park shot now cuz I fell better!!!! Oooooo this is so better than viagra!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:11. OMG Saddamn that was so NOT funny about “power-lift shoes.” U no I got bad ankles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My doctor said so the one I accidentally had shot not the one I got now!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:15. OMG okay like the nxt time im having a bad day I’m like so going to nuke shanghai!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:17. OMG Hu that was so like a joke u no & that thing about my hair being taller than the rest of me was so not kool!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:20. OMG Hu u no your my homeboy BFF 4-ever!!!!!!!!!!!!! That correspondence with Obama was just pity for him ok???????????????
1:22. OMG I just remembrd my nuke missiles bring on the jade girls!!!!
1:23. OMG that octomom is such a hottie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:24. OMG Hugo do you h8 Amerika as much as i do??????????
1:26. OMG me 2 hugo I line up my star wars dolls and label Darth Vadar “Amerika” and Luke Skywalker “me” xcept whn im feeling u no special and then I label Princess Leia “me.” But keep it a secret ok!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:30. OMG no Robert hugo SO lies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:31. OMG Hugo you crossed your heart & promised not to tell!!!!!!!!!!!!!! U are so NOT my BFF now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:33. OMG u people stop making short jokes & princess leia jokes now I MEAN IT I got nuke missiles now IM DA MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2:00. OMG like u no I had a cabinet meeting & had some counterrevolutionaries shot it was so kool seeing them begging for their lives thatz why they call me Dear Leader. Ok like I got nukes now so Im wearing THE BIG-BOY PANTS just like Obama so he’s got to be my BFF for now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2:05. OMG so lik im going to wear a seahawks cap back’ards I’ll look soooo coooool!!!!!!!!!!
2:06. OMG r maybe Ill wear my Special Forces Colonel uniform with the mossy oaf cammo pattern & my silver-plated ak-47 special Lenin model with the picture of princess Leia on the stock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2:10. OMG did I tell u guys about my nuke missiles!!!!!! I am like so SOMEBODY now and they got to RESPECT me!!!!!!
2:15. OMG its so 215 in the morning so I am so ready for bed now with my Mickey on my pillow and my Princess Leia on the other side of my pillow and my fairy princess nite lite and my guards all tall and handsome outside my door & a special fone by my bed that connects me directly to my big nuke missiles I feel so snug and special nitey-nites!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A LITURGY FOR THE EMPEROR -- now available on Amazon.com
I am pleased to announce that my appropriately slender, rather expensive, and quite excellent book of poetry, A Liturgy for the Emperor, is now available from Amazon.com. If you have read it, do post a review on Amazon. If you haven't read it, your purchase of it will indulge both my ego and my bank account! There are many small pieces, including sonnets, and the longish eponymous poem, "A Liturgy for the Emperor," is in honor of Byzantium.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Decoration Day
Did John Kerry place a wreath on himself today?
-- Mack Hall, Viet-Nam Class of 1969-1970
-- Mack Hall, Viet-Nam Class of 1969-1970
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