Mack Hall
Ashley Sanders, one of the many fine writers at The Beaumont Enterprise, posted in her Sunday column a list of the top ten pet names according to an organization called Veterinary Pet Insurance. For dogs, those are:
1. Bella
2. Max
3. Bailey
4. Lucy
5. Molly
6. Buddy
7. Maggie
8. Daisy
9. Chloe
10. Sophie
What strikes the perceptive reader is that the top ten dog names are almost as Christian as the top ten human names.
Bella, meaning beautiful, appears as the prefix Bel in many saints’ names. Max, for Maximus, Maximian, and Maximilian, is popular in both Roman and Greek hagiography, and Bailey, Old English for bailiff, appears in several English and Bretagne saints’ names and as the middle name of St. Elizabeth Seton. Lucy (Bringer of Light) is the happy name of many saints all over Europe and the Mediterranean, Molly is a diminutive of Mary just as Maggie is of Margaret, and Daisy, the day’s eye flower in Old English, is also another name for Margaret since in France the daisy is called the marguerite. Even Buddy enjoys a Christian connection; in Old English it means messenger / friend / brother, and is associated with the Twelve Brothers of Carthage, Africans who were martyred for their Christian faith. Chloe is Greek for young growth and is not in itself a saint’s name but the root Chlo / Clo appears often. There are many saints named Sophie / Sophia, Greek for wisdom, and the mother church of Orthodoxy, profaned by the Turks from 1453 until the present day, is named Hagia Sophia, meaning Holy Wisdom. (Sheehan, Dictionary of Patron Saints’ Names)
Now that we have dismissed the doggies, let us consider the top ten baby names of 2009 according to Babyfirstyear.org:
Girls:
Ella
Grace
Emma
Elizabeth
Lorelei
Riley
Rory
Isabella
Chloe
Anna
Boys:
Aiden
Jayden
Dylan
James
Gavin
Benjamin
Caleb
Nathan
Jack
Andrew
All these names except one enjoy a Christian or Jewish origin, reversing a generation-old trend of labeling children after soap opera characters, geographical features, or simply noises that sounded good to the young parents. God help the child whose parents thought “Urk” made a nice sound. Well, when he comes of age he can change Urk for a real name.
One kinda worries about Lorelei, though.
-30-
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Great Work -- Now Go Away
Mack Hall
Last fall a Navy commando unit in a brilliant operation captured a notorious terrorist alive. Alive. But the terrorist later said that the sailors socked him during the confrontation and gave him a fat lip, and now the sailors are being court-martialed. So will the Japanese government now sue World War II veterans for hurting Generalissimo Tojo’s feelings? Will Grandpa be yanked off his rocking chair and sent to jail because he once said something rude about Adolf Hitler during the Battle of the Bulge?
More recently a police officer in a city far, far away was suspended with pay after he fired his pistol at a man who was threatening people, including the officer, with a knife. In such matters one would think that the suspension would be for the sake of the officer, for a good man does come away from such a matter the same man who went into it. But the matter always seems to project as a suspicion of the officer, and the dreary electronic comments from the sort of people who take their ideology from street corners and their grammar from twitting support this grim conclusion. Folks want to be protected but then they sideline-quarterback the protectors. As someone (the sources conflict) said, (Newark) hath no fury like a non-combatant.
The concept of suspending someone for doing his job does not obtain in most vocations. One does not imagine the head of surgery saying “Doctor Snorthbargle, you were simply brilliant today in saving the life of that emergency patient. You’re suspended until the medical board investigates you. Now go away.”
The supermarket manager does not call for an inquiry on little Siegfried the sack boy because the customers compliment him for his good work.
When a team wins a football game they are not sent home while a court determines whether or not they acted wisely in doing so.
Consider the possibility of a police officer observing a citizen driving carefully, following all state and local laws while operating a safe and well-maintained motor vehicle. The officer arrests the citizen and brings him before a justice of the peace who rules: “Citizen Jones, you were seen driving in a prudent fashion. Your license is suspended while I refer your case to the grand jury. I am impounding your car. You may have one telephone call to send for someone to come and get you. You might want to tell that friend or relative to drive irresponsibly unless he too wants the full majesty of the law to come down on him like a ton of cliches’.”
What if Captain Smith had parked the Titanic for the night long, long ago? “Captain Smith, you brought the company’s newest ship and all her passengers and crew safely to New York. Until the Board of Trade considers this matter carefully, your master’s license is suspended.”
The judge summons Perry Mason to the bench. “Mr. Mason, you were wonderful today. You saved an innocent woman from the death penalty and you helped the police find the real murderer. You represent everything that is true and noble in the legal profession. Your license to practice law is suspended until further notice, and the bailiff will now escort you to your cell.”
On a fine autumn day several liberal arts graduates from the United States Department of Agriculture descend upon Farmer Brown with briefcases full of legal documents. “Farmer Brown, you raised fine crops of wheat and soy this year. You provided part-time employment for three transient laborers and for five high school kids during the haying season. You filled out all your government forms accurately, paid your taxes, demonstrated wise agricultural practices, and in all ways are an excellent man. Your livestock are well cared for and you are unfailingly considerate of your neighbors and the environment. Therefore, we must investigate you. During this investigation, which may take a year or two, you are forbidden to farm. This means you will lose the land that’s been in your family for generations, but don’t worry; it will make a nice parking lot for Giganto-Mart. Further, your federal government, for whom you voted, is in its infinite generosity giving you a discount on your monthly rental of a public-housing unit.”
These are humorous imaginings, but there are very real exceptions to the idea that the laborer is worth of his hire: the illogical ways the American people sometimes mishandle their own police and their own young men and women in the services.
-30-
Last fall a Navy commando unit in a brilliant operation captured a notorious terrorist alive. Alive. But the terrorist later said that the sailors socked him during the confrontation and gave him a fat lip, and now the sailors are being court-martialed. So will the Japanese government now sue World War II veterans for hurting Generalissimo Tojo’s feelings? Will Grandpa be yanked off his rocking chair and sent to jail because he once said something rude about Adolf Hitler during the Battle of the Bulge?
More recently a police officer in a city far, far away was suspended with pay after he fired his pistol at a man who was threatening people, including the officer, with a knife. In such matters one would think that the suspension would be for the sake of the officer, for a good man does come away from such a matter the same man who went into it. But the matter always seems to project as a suspicion of the officer, and the dreary electronic comments from the sort of people who take their ideology from street corners and their grammar from twitting support this grim conclusion. Folks want to be protected but then they sideline-quarterback the protectors. As someone (the sources conflict) said, (Newark) hath no fury like a non-combatant.
The concept of suspending someone for doing his job does not obtain in most vocations. One does not imagine the head of surgery saying “Doctor Snorthbargle, you were simply brilliant today in saving the life of that emergency patient. You’re suspended until the medical board investigates you. Now go away.”
The supermarket manager does not call for an inquiry on little Siegfried the sack boy because the customers compliment him for his good work.
When a team wins a football game they are not sent home while a court determines whether or not they acted wisely in doing so.
Consider the possibility of a police officer observing a citizen driving carefully, following all state and local laws while operating a safe and well-maintained motor vehicle. The officer arrests the citizen and brings him before a justice of the peace who rules: “Citizen Jones, you were seen driving in a prudent fashion. Your license is suspended while I refer your case to the grand jury. I am impounding your car. You may have one telephone call to send for someone to come and get you. You might want to tell that friend or relative to drive irresponsibly unless he too wants the full majesty of the law to come down on him like a ton of cliches’.”
What if Captain Smith had parked the Titanic for the night long, long ago? “Captain Smith, you brought the company’s newest ship and all her passengers and crew safely to New York. Until the Board of Trade considers this matter carefully, your master’s license is suspended.”
The judge summons Perry Mason to the bench. “Mr. Mason, you were wonderful today. You saved an innocent woman from the death penalty and you helped the police find the real murderer. You represent everything that is true and noble in the legal profession. Your license to practice law is suspended until further notice, and the bailiff will now escort you to your cell.”
On a fine autumn day several liberal arts graduates from the United States Department of Agriculture descend upon Farmer Brown with briefcases full of legal documents. “Farmer Brown, you raised fine crops of wheat and soy this year. You provided part-time employment for three transient laborers and for five high school kids during the haying season. You filled out all your government forms accurately, paid your taxes, demonstrated wise agricultural practices, and in all ways are an excellent man. Your livestock are well cared for and you are unfailingly considerate of your neighbors and the environment. Therefore, we must investigate you. During this investigation, which may take a year or two, you are forbidden to farm. This means you will lose the land that’s been in your family for generations, but don’t worry; it will make a nice parking lot for Giganto-Mart. Further, your federal government, for whom you voted, is in its infinite generosity giving you a discount on your monthly rental of a public-housing unit.”
These are humorous imaginings, but there are very real exceptions to the idea that the laborer is worth of his hire: the illogical ways the American people sometimes mishandle their own police and their own young men and women in the services.
-30-
Thursday, December 31, 2009
The Catholic Keyboard Commando -- a Little Doglessmatic Doggerel
Mack Hall
The Catholic Keyboard Commando -- A Little Doglessmatic Doggerel
Dedicated to Certain More-Catholic-Than-You Bloggers
A species of Catholic, brave and true,
Humble, spiritual, intellectual too,
Corrects us heretics – give him a hand-o:
The carping Catholic keyboard commando!
His keyboard’s inspired by the Holy Ghost;
Just ask him; he’ll make you no idle boast.
Together they make a righteous band-o:
The carping Catholic keyboard commando!
“Sede vacante” is sometimes his style;
With these two words he makes a barnyard pile.
He’s holier than the Pope, and oh, so grand-o:
The carping Catholic keyboard commando!
He hates anyone who is not like him –
“You liberal!” is how he dismisses them,
Because opposition he cannot stand-o:
The carping Catholic keyboard commando!
He is so perfect in his thoughts and prayers,
Burdened with all of Holy Church’s cares,
So God should listen to this holy man-doh:
Petty Pelagian keyboard commando!
This includes a blogging priest (or two):
He drools vile thoughts, attributes them to you.
Caritas, no, he’s busy with his glands-o:
Lecherous Catholic keyboard commando!
But now it’s time for this dog’rel to close
While God’s chosen ‘blogger looks down his nose
In judgment smug from his fairyland-o:
The carping Catholic keyboard commando!
The Catholic Keyboard Commando -- A Little Doglessmatic Doggerel
Dedicated to Certain More-Catholic-Than-You Bloggers
A species of Catholic, brave and true,
Humble, spiritual, intellectual too,
Corrects us heretics – give him a hand-o:
The carping Catholic keyboard commando!
His keyboard’s inspired by the Holy Ghost;
Just ask him; he’ll make you no idle boast.
Together they make a righteous band-o:
The carping Catholic keyboard commando!
“Sede vacante” is sometimes his style;
With these two words he makes a barnyard pile.
He’s holier than the Pope, and oh, so grand-o:
The carping Catholic keyboard commando!
He hates anyone who is not like him –
“You liberal!” is how he dismisses them,
Because opposition he cannot stand-o:
The carping Catholic keyboard commando!
He is so perfect in his thoughts and prayers,
Burdened with all of Holy Church’s cares,
So God should listen to this holy man-doh:
Petty Pelagian keyboard commando!
This includes a blogging priest (or two):
He drools vile thoughts, attributes them to you.
Caritas, no, he’s busy with his glands-o:
Lecherous Catholic keyboard commando!
But now it’s time for this dog’rel to close
While God’s chosen ‘blogger looks down his nose
In judgment smug from his fairyland-o:
The carping Catholic keyboard commando!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Explosive Ivanas
Mack Hall
Ivana Trump, who is famous for her marriages or something, was required to leave a commercial aircraft at Palm Beach for misbehavior after she waxed wroth at some children who were running and screaming in the aisles. There is no word as to whether the running and screaming children were de-off-un-boarded too.
Anyone who has flown with children will surely sympathize with Ms. Trump; most rug-rats should be stowed below with the other live animals.
Perhaps Ivana and the children should all have been punished by being made to sit together and share a Happy Meal.
If vulgar old women can be shown the way to the bus station, why can’t the terrorists?
Just last week a wealthy Nigerian studying engineering in London tried to explode himself on a flight into Detroit. People who have been to Detroit report that such a desire is common. The terrorist – um, misunderstood youth – boarded at Amsterdam, where airport security is reputedly, like, whoa, dude, this is some good stuff we’re smokin’, huh? He carried on his person explosives which he assembled in the potty and then attempted to touch off on the approach. Some of the other passengers, insensitive brutes who probably watch FOX and have read Sarah Palin’s book, jumped on the unfortunate son-of-a-(rich man) who was but crying out for understanding.
As usual, the perp’s acquaintances report that he was a good fellow, a fine student, and a great basketball player. Well, hey, we all know that terrorists are old grouches who have trouble spelling and don’t like sports.
The poor fellow’s lawsuits against the airline and the other passengers and the makers of his flaming underwear are soon to be announced. The meanies who saved the airliner and over two hundred lives must be punished.
The next day another Nigerian on another flight from Amsterdam to Detroit also locked himself in the potty (which most of us do) and refused to come out during the approach, pleading illness. This time the situation appears to have been one of funny-tummy. Perhaps the man had to sit next to some rotten children. Or maybe he was coming to America for the Obamacare.
Security Czar Janet, one of our republic’s many czars (ironic, eh?), hastens to assure us that air travel is safe, which is why airport security are hassling twice the usual number of little old ladies.
Safe airline travel, eh, your Czar-ness? With screaming children, cursing Ivanas, scheming terrorists, and Nigerian businessmen with explosive diarrhea if not explosives, maybe booking space on the Titanic should be an option again.
Ivana Trump, who is famous for her marriages or something, was required to leave a commercial aircraft at Palm Beach for misbehavior after she waxed wroth at some children who were running and screaming in the aisles. There is no word as to whether the running and screaming children were de-off-un-boarded too.
Anyone who has flown with children will surely sympathize with Ms. Trump; most rug-rats should be stowed below with the other live animals.
Perhaps Ivana and the children should all have been punished by being made to sit together and share a Happy Meal.
If vulgar old women can be shown the way to the bus station, why can’t the terrorists?
Just last week a wealthy Nigerian studying engineering in London tried to explode himself on a flight into Detroit. People who have been to Detroit report that such a desire is common. The terrorist – um, misunderstood youth – boarded at Amsterdam, where airport security is reputedly, like, whoa, dude, this is some good stuff we’re smokin’, huh? He carried on his person explosives which he assembled in the potty and then attempted to touch off on the approach. Some of the other passengers, insensitive brutes who probably watch FOX and have read Sarah Palin’s book, jumped on the unfortunate son-of-a-(rich man) who was but crying out for understanding.
As usual, the perp’s acquaintances report that he was a good fellow, a fine student, and a great basketball player. Well, hey, we all know that terrorists are old grouches who have trouble spelling and don’t like sports.
The poor fellow’s lawsuits against the airline and the other passengers and the makers of his flaming underwear are soon to be announced. The meanies who saved the airliner and over two hundred lives must be punished.
The next day another Nigerian on another flight from Amsterdam to Detroit also locked himself in the potty (which most of us do) and refused to come out during the approach, pleading illness. This time the situation appears to have been one of funny-tummy. Perhaps the man had to sit next to some rotten children. Or maybe he was coming to America for the Obamacare.
Security Czar Janet, one of our republic’s many czars (ironic, eh?), hastens to assure us that air travel is safe, which is why airport security are hassling twice the usual number of little old ladies.
Safe airline travel, eh, your Czar-ness? With screaming children, cursing Ivanas, scheming terrorists, and Nigerian businessmen with explosive diarrhea if not explosives, maybe booking space on the Titanic should be an option again.
Explosive Ivanas
Mack Hall
Ivana Trump, who is famous for her marriages or something, was required to leave a commercial aircraft at Palm Beach for misbehavior after she waxed wroth at some children who were running and screaming in the aisles. There is no word as to whether the running and screaming children were de-off-un-boarded too.
Anyone who has flown with children will surely sympathize with Ms. Trump; most rug-rats should be stowed below with the other live animals.
Perhaps Ivana and the children should all have been punished by being made to sit together and share a Happy Meal.
If vulgar old women can be shown the way to the bus station, why can’t the terrorists?
Just last week a wealthy Nigerian studying engineering in London tried to explode himself on a flight into Detroit. People who have been to Detroit report that such a desire is common. The terrorist – um, misunderstood youth – boarded at Amsterdam, where airport security is reputedly, like, whoa, dude, this is some good stuff we’re smokin’, huh? He carried on his person explosives which he assembled in the potty and then attempted to touch off on the approach. Some of the other passengers, insensitive brutes who probably watch FOX and have read Sarah Palin’s book, jumped on the unfortunate son-of-a-(rich man) who was but crying out for understanding.
As usual, the perp’s acquaintances report that he was a good fellow, a fine student, and a great basketball player. Well, hey, we all know that terrorists are old grouches who have trouble spelling and don’t like sports.
The poor fellow’s lawsuits against the airline and the other passengers and the makers of his flaming underwear are soon to be announced. The meanies who saved the airliner and over two hundred lives must be punished.
The next day another Nigerian on another flight from Amsterdam to Detroit also locked himself in the potty (which most of us do) and refused to come out during the approach, pleading illness. This time the situation appears to have been one of funny-tummy. Perhaps the man had to sit next to some rotten children. Or maybe he was coming to America for the Obamacare.
Security Czar Janet, one of our republic’s many czars (ironic, eh?), hastens to assure us that air travel is safe, which is why airport security are hassling twice the usual number of little old ladies.
Safe airline travel, eh, your Czar-ness? With screaming children, cursing Ivanas, scheming terrorists, and Nigerian businessmen with explosive diarrhea if not explosives, maybe booking space on the Titanic should be an option again.
Ivana Trump, who is famous for her marriages or something, was required to leave a commercial aircraft at Palm Beach for misbehavior after she waxed wroth at some children who were running and screaming in the aisles. There is no word as to whether the running and screaming children were de-off-un-boarded too.
Anyone who has flown with children will surely sympathize with Ms. Trump; most rug-rats should be stowed below with the other live animals.
Perhaps Ivana and the children should all have been punished by being made to sit together and share a Happy Meal.
If vulgar old women can be shown the way to the bus station, why can’t the terrorists?
Just last week a wealthy Nigerian studying engineering in London tried to explode himself on a flight into Detroit. People who have been to Detroit report that such a desire is common. The terrorist – um, misunderstood youth – boarded at Amsterdam, where airport security is reputedly, like, whoa, dude, this is some good stuff we’re smokin’, huh? He carried on his person explosives which he assembled in the potty and then attempted to touch off on the approach. Some of the other passengers, insensitive brutes who probably watch FOX and have read Sarah Palin’s book, jumped on the unfortunate son-of-a-(rich man) who was but crying out for understanding.
As usual, the perp’s acquaintances report that he was a good fellow, a fine student, and a great basketball player. Well, hey, we all know that terrorists are old grouches who have trouble spelling and don’t like sports.
The poor fellow’s lawsuits against the airline and the other passengers and the makers of his flaming underwear are soon to be announced. The meanies who saved the airliner and over two hundred lives must be punished.
The next day another Nigerian on another flight from Amsterdam to Detroit also locked himself in the potty (which most of us do) and refused to come out during the approach, pleading illness. This time the situation appears to have been one of funny-tummy. Perhaps the man had to sit next to some rotten children. Or maybe he was coming to America for the Obamacare.
Security Czar Janet, one of our republic’s many czars (ironic, eh?), hastens to assure us that air travel is safe, which is why airport security are hassling twice the usual number of little old ladies.
Safe airline travel, eh, your Czar-ness? With screaming children, cursing Ivanas, scheming terrorists, and Nigerian businessmen with explosive diarrhea if not explosives, maybe booking space on the Titanic should be an option again.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
An Advent Valentine
Mack Hall
An Advent Valentine
For, of course, happy Valentine Marie Petty
And now comes Valentine, an autumn gift;
Vertumnus and Pomona thus withdraw
In recognition of the seasonal shift,
Saluting, they, this Advent child in awe.
The pagan year recesses to its close;
The Christian year commences with a child
Born as the second candle softly glows
(Saint Nicholas is happily beguiled).
Her family journeys to Bethlehem,
A little family in a Star-lit night,
And Simeon, perhaps, joins in their hymn,
As they present their love to living Light:
Rare gifts for the Christ Child ‘midst sheep and kine,
And not among the least, His Valentine
An Advent Valentine
For, of course, happy Valentine Marie Petty
And now comes Valentine, an autumn gift;
Vertumnus and Pomona thus withdraw
In recognition of the seasonal shift,
Saluting, they, this Advent child in awe.
The pagan year recesses to its close;
The Christian year commences with a child
Born as the second candle softly glows
(Saint Nicholas is happily beguiled).
Her family journeys to Bethlehem,
A little family in a Star-lit night,
And Simeon, perhaps, joins in their hymn,
As they present their love to living Light:
Rare gifts for the Christ Child ‘midst sheep and kine,
And not among the least, His Valentine
The Arts of Christmas
Mack Hall
Christmas is pretty. Of all the holidays, both religious and secular, Christmas inspires more and better attempts at literary, visual, and musical art than all the others. Easter, the premiere Christian holy day, ends its somber Lenten anticipation with beautiful music celebrating the Resurrection, but in popular culture is almost ignored. Independence Day is red, white, blue, explosions, and John Philip Sousa, which are okay, but no one spends four weeks in preparation for the Fourth. The religious holidays of All Souls and All Saints have been perverted into the ghastly Halloween, and Thanksgiving barely makes a nod at the Pilgrim fathers before dismembering a turkey and then yelling at a footer match on television.
But with Christmas comes art.
Arnold Friberg, who painted one of the most famous versions of Washington at prayer, wisely said that art which has to be explained is not art at all.
And so it is with Christmas. A Christmas tree needs no explanation, not even to an infant – it simply is, with its colored lights and angels and glass globes and “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament. Adults argue whether Christmas trees are pagan in origin (they probably are), and certainly the aforementioned Pilgrim fathers banned Christmas trees (and Christmas itself) as Romish corruptions, but a child in his wisdom delights in trees.
Christmas music, too, never requires National Public Radio gaseous exhalations invoking such Charlie Brown teacher-isms as “fusion,” “inculturation,” and “textual analysis.” Handel’s glorious music is as clear to an atonal simpleton like me as it is to James Levine of the New York Phil. Fr. Franz Gruber’s simple and sublime “Stille Nacht” and Gene Autry’s jolly “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as a contract piece for Montgomery Ward both have their places in the canon, one to honor the birth of the Savior and the other to honor the cash-register.
Any time a Hallmark Christmas movie is broadcast an angel rips its wings off, but there is a lengthy catalogue of great Christmas films, including Holiday Inn, The Bishop’s Wife, The Shop Around the Corner, Miracle on 34th Street, and Christmas in Connecticut. John Wayne’s Three Godfathers, with its themes of sacrifice and redemption, is laden with Christmas allusions. Every year Linus Van Pelt in A Charlie Brown Christmas reads to us the infancy narrative from St. Luke, and he doesn’t need a voice-over narrator to explain it all to us.
And, hey, don’t shoot your eye out.
In the 13th century St. Francis of Assisi set up the first Nativity scene, forever giving serious sculptors and even more serious manufacturers a subject for artistic endeavors of varying quality. Perhaps the best Nativity scenes are the cheap ones the children can play with. Since World War II this Catholic tradition has become popular with other Christian faithful, just in time for public displays to be shut down by some local courts, who understand it very well.
Happily there was no Martha Stewart at Bethlehem to instruct Mary on decorating the Stable just so. If Christmas begins with a stable, as St. Luke and Linus remind us, need it continue in a museum-display living room on the cover of Southern Living? One does not imagine the Blessed Mother apologizing to the shepherds because “the stable is a mess.”
Nativity scenes remain simple, which is a small miracle. In churches one sees other Christian symbols, including statues and crucifixes, which appear to have been beaten out of scrap metal by a disturbed chimpanzee with a sledge hammer. Church committees are often deceived into paying good money for debris when a disciple of Billy Mays saliva-sprays them with polysyllabic adjectives explaining what his purported art means. As with the emperor’s new clothes, few people have the courage to say “I DO know something about art, and this ain’t it, pal.”
But art has left the humble Stable alone, not fitting it out with rocket pods or even running water, and a little child can place the Infant Jesus in His manger between Mary and Joseph, set the camels here – or maybe there? – and the ox and the shepherds where she feels they need to be, not where a decorator with a color chart and the rule of three says they must be. Little children pretty much know how Christmas should be, and their play is the best art of all.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Christmas is pretty. Of all the holidays, both religious and secular, Christmas inspires more and better attempts at literary, visual, and musical art than all the others. Easter, the premiere Christian holy day, ends its somber Lenten anticipation with beautiful music celebrating the Resurrection, but in popular culture is almost ignored. Independence Day is red, white, blue, explosions, and John Philip Sousa, which are okay, but no one spends four weeks in preparation for the Fourth. The religious holidays of All Souls and All Saints have been perverted into the ghastly Halloween, and Thanksgiving barely makes a nod at the Pilgrim fathers before dismembering a turkey and then yelling at a footer match on television.
But with Christmas comes art.
Arnold Friberg, who painted one of the most famous versions of Washington at prayer, wisely said that art which has to be explained is not art at all.
And so it is with Christmas. A Christmas tree needs no explanation, not even to an infant – it simply is, with its colored lights and angels and glass globes and “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament. Adults argue whether Christmas trees are pagan in origin (they probably are), and certainly the aforementioned Pilgrim fathers banned Christmas trees (and Christmas itself) as Romish corruptions, but a child in his wisdom delights in trees.
Christmas music, too, never requires National Public Radio gaseous exhalations invoking such Charlie Brown teacher-isms as “fusion,” “inculturation,” and “textual analysis.” Handel’s glorious music is as clear to an atonal simpleton like me as it is to James Levine of the New York Phil. Fr. Franz Gruber’s simple and sublime “Stille Nacht” and Gene Autry’s jolly “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as a contract piece for Montgomery Ward both have their places in the canon, one to honor the birth of the Savior and the other to honor the cash-register.
Any time a Hallmark Christmas movie is broadcast an angel rips its wings off, but there is a lengthy catalogue of great Christmas films, including Holiday Inn, The Bishop’s Wife, The Shop Around the Corner, Miracle on 34th Street, and Christmas in Connecticut. John Wayne’s Three Godfathers, with its themes of sacrifice and redemption, is laden with Christmas allusions. Every year Linus Van Pelt in A Charlie Brown Christmas reads to us the infancy narrative from St. Luke, and he doesn’t need a voice-over narrator to explain it all to us.
And, hey, don’t shoot your eye out.
In the 13th century St. Francis of Assisi set up the first Nativity scene, forever giving serious sculptors and even more serious manufacturers a subject for artistic endeavors of varying quality. Perhaps the best Nativity scenes are the cheap ones the children can play with. Since World War II this Catholic tradition has become popular with other Christian faithful, just in time for public displays to be shut down by some local courts, who understand it very well.
Happily there was no Martha Stewart at Bethlehem to instruct Mary on decorating the Stable just so. If Christmas begins with a stable, as St. Luke and Linus remind us, need it continue in a museum-display living room on the cover of Southern Living? One does not imagine the Blessed Mother apologizing to the shepherds because “the stable is a mess.”
Nativity scenes remain simple, which is a small miracle. In churches one sees other Christian symbols, including statues and crucifixes, which appear to have been beaten out of scrap metal by a disturbed chimpanzee with a sledge hammer. Church committees are often deceived into paying good money for debris when a disciple of Billy Mays saliva-sprays them with polysyllabic adjectives explaining what his purported art means. As with the emperor’s new clothes, few people have the courage to say “I DO know something about art, and this ain’t it, pal.”
But art has left the humble Stable alone, not fitting it out with rocket pods or even running water, and a little child can place the Infant Jesus in His manger between Mary and Joseph, set the camels here – or maybe there? – and the ox and the shepherds where she feels they need to be, not where a decorator with a color chart and the rule of three says they must be. Little children pretty much know how Christmas should be, and their play is the best art of all.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
The National Christmas Wish List
Mack Hall
Tiger Woods – a new set of golf clubs. Or at least a new driver.
American soldiers – the same medical care and legal protection granted to this nation’s enemies.
President and Mrs. Obama – a few extra place settings for those drop-in dinner guests.
A.C.O.R.N. – industrial-strength, high-speed paper shredders.
For all children – no more dinner-table shootings. Holidays aren’t supposed to include casualty lists.
Rhode Island Representative Patrick Kennedy – a King Henry II action figure with a voice chip that says “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
Global Warming true believers – a stocking full of carbon credits. And maybe a brain.
Windows Vista users – an Apple computer.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – Obedience. So let it be written. So let it be done.
Sarah Palin – Levi’s for Levi. Put on your clothes and go home, lad; your fifteen minutes are up.
Some of the prissier Christian bloggers – books on Donatism and Pelagianism.
That special woman in your life – more shirtless vampire dudes.
United States Army Major Nidal Hassan – the customary book and movie deal.
Former President Jimmy Carter – please notice him. Then maybe he’ll go away.
Finally, for the little children: may they find under the Christmas tree roller skates, dolls, toy trucks and cars made of metal, cap pistols (gasp!), toy trains, chessmen, books about Robin Hood and King Arthur and The Bobbsey Twins, marbles, Lincoln Logs, little toy soldiers, Old Maid cards, and coloring books, none of it with electronic chips. And may the children, just for an hour or two, be permitted to play without the weird adult world of who’s mad at whom this year intruding. And even breakfast can wait a while, okay?
Tiger Woods – a new set of golf clubs. Or at least a new driver.
American soldiers – the same medical care and legal protection granted to this nation’s enemies.
President and Mrs. Obama – a few extra place settings for those drop-in dinner guests.
A.C.O.R.N. – industrial-strength, high-speed paper shredders.
For all children – no more dinner-table shootings. Holidays aren’t supposed to include casualty lists.
Rhode Island Representative Patrick Kennedy – a King Henry II action figure with a voice chip that says “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
Global Warming true believers – a stocking full of carbon credits. And maybe a brain.
Windows Vista users – an Apple computer.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – Obedience. So let it be written. So let it be done.
Sarah Palin – Levi’s for Levi. Put on your clothes and go home, lad; your fifteen minutes are up.
Some of the prissier Christian bloggers – books on Donatism and Pelagianism.
That special woman in your life – more shirtless vampire dudes.
United States Army Major Nidal Hassan – the customary book and movie deal.
Former President Jimmy Carter – please notice him. Then maybe he’ll go away.
Finally, for the little children: may they find under the Christmas tree roller skates, dolls, toy trucks and cars made of metal, cap pistols (gasp!), toy trains, chessmen, books about Robin Hood and King Arthur and The Bobbsey Twins, marbles, Lincoln Logs, little toy soldiers, Old Maid cards, and coloring books, none of it with electronic chips. And may the children, just for an hour or two, be permitted to play without the weird adult world of who’s mad at whom this year intruding. And even breakfast can wait a while, okay?
Having the Neighbors for Supper
Mack Hall
Near Herxheim, a small town in the Rhineland-Palatinate, archaeologists have found the fragmented remains of some 500 folks who were apparently eaten by their friends and neighbors 7,000 years ago.
The BBC was too, too pleased to locate Herxheim in southwestern Germany, but a mediaeval border incident involving a kilometer or two could just as easily have placed the little town in eastern France. And you know what they say about French cooking.
Hey, what a name for the local football team, eh? The Herxheim Omnivores. Herxheim Herbivores would be more alliterative but, alas, inaccurate.
One indication of anthropophagia was the preserved remnants of fast-food bags labeled Johann-in-der-Box and containing bits of Johann.
Noshing on one’s fellows is rare in Europe, except for that quiet little man next door who was such a good neighbor and kept his lawn tidy, so scientists from the University of Bordeaux (and a glass of Bordeaux always goes well with a meat dish) speculate that this was a rare event caused by a famine.
The Copenhagen crowd hasn’t opined on the matter of 7,000–year-old carbon footprints near Herxheim but there were certainly carbonized ladyfingers.
In those days a lunch invitation would sure make one nervous.
Hey, about hobo stew?
And dining out could cost an arm and a leg.
A restaurant advertising German cooking would mean it.
A kid playing with a friend might begin to worry if the friend’s mother appeared at the door with a carving knife and called out “Heinrich, stop playing with your food!”
“Clean your plate, son; there are kids starving in China who would love to have your cousin Dieter.”
Fast food would mean a track star from the snack bar.
Cap’n Crunch was seafood to the neoliths.
And kids speak disapprovingly of the school lunch these days.
Country cooking would be Hank Williams en brochette.
Diners might complain to the chef about the guitarist who was too stringy.
Oh, well, that’s enough anthropophagic humor in your morning newspaper. Now go ahead and eat your breakfast – whoever it was.
Near Herxheim, a small town in the Rhineland-Palatinate, archaeologists have found the fragmented remains of some 500 folks who were apparently eaten by their friends and neighbors 7,000 years ago.
The BBC was too, too pleased to locate Herxheim in southwestern Germany, but a mediaeval border incident involving a kilometer or two could just as easily have placed the little town in eastern France. And you know what they say about French cooking.
Hey, what a name for the local football team, eh? The Herxheim Omnivores. Herxheim Herbivores would be more alliterative but, alas, inaccurate.
One indication of anthropophagia was the preserved remnants of fast-food bags labeled Johann-in-der-Box and containing bits of Johann.
Noshing on one’s fellows is rare in Europe, except for that quiet little man next door who was such a good neighbor and kept his lawn tidy, so scientists from the University of Bordeaux (and a glass of Bordeaux always goes well with a meat dish) speculate that this was a rare event caused by a famine.
The Copenhagen crowd hasn’t opined on the matter of 7,000–year-old carbon footprints near Herxheim but there were certainly carbonized ladyfingers.
In those days a lunch invitation would sure make one nervous.
Hey, about hobo stew?
And dining out could cost an arm and a leg.
A restaurant advertising German cooking would mean it.
A kid playing with a friend might begin to worry if the friend’s mother appeared at the door with a carving knife and called out “Heinrich, stop playing with your food!”
“Clean your plate, son; there are kids starving in China who would love to have your cousin Dieter.”
Fast food would mean a track star from the snack bar.
Cap’n Crunch was seafood to the neoliths.
And kids speak disapprovingly of the school lunch these days.
Country cooking would be Hank Williams en brochette.
Diners might complain to the chef about the guitarist who was too stringy.
Oh, well, that’s enough anthropophagic humor in your morning newspaper. Now go ahead and eat your breakfast – whoever it was.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
An Adjective Christmas
Mack Hall
So thoroughly did our Puritan ancestors purge Christmas from the culture that in the New England colonies the observance of Advent or Christmas was a crime. Save for Anglicans and Catholics, Christmas was not much a part of the American tradition until the middle of the 19th century when Charles Dickens’ stories and Prince Albert’s Christmas tree generated the holiday as a secular fashion.
Advent isn’t much observed at all, not even as a generic late-autumn holiday. Instead, America is for its sins burdened with a wholly artificial construct called The Christmas Season.
That Season is upon us, That Season when folks talk about putting Christ back into Christmas and then skip divine services on Christmas day itself. And can a mere human actually put Christ anywhere anyway?
There are elements of The Christmas Season that make one despair of salvation: A Christmas Carol comes to mind, and Hallmark movies. Surely every time It’s a Wonderful Life is broadcast an angel rips its wings off. Maybe the Puritans foresaw all that, and that was why they banned Christmas.
Christmas is seldom without an adjective anymore. Even Dickens had the decency to leave the name of the holiday alone, but now the marketers of music and movies pile on the descriptors in order to peddle to niche audiences: White Christmas, A Muppet Christmas, Rocky Mountain Christmas, and, I suppose, The Ground Squirrels’ Christmas, An Ozark Christmas, An Irish Christmas, A Three (or is it four?) Tenors Christmas, A Country Christmas, Somebody’s Country Christmas, Somebody Else’s Country Ozark Christmas, Somebody Else’s Tennessee Country Ozark Farm Christmas, A Cowboy Christmas, A Cajun Christmas, An Ol’ Fashioned Christmas, A Victorian Christmas, Some Girl in an Amish Bonnet Christmas, A Down-Home Christmas, A Down East Christmas, and maybe even The Blair Witch Christmas Reunion Special.
I suppose three (or four) tenors for Christmas is nice, but why not The Three Electricians for Christmas? When the power fails, sturdy fellows in Nomex suits are indeed The Three Wise Electricians, bearing gifts of light and heat and running water.
Hospital workers, too, deserve their own Christmas movie, as do cops and firemen and plumbers and ambulance crews and soldiers and all the other folks who on Christmas do not get to snuggle in warm beds with visions of anything because they’re on duty. Wassail? Eggnog? No, gimme another go-cup of that hairy-legged two-in-the-morning coffee.
Waiters and retail clerks deserve combat pay, not just their own movie or song, for enduring the ungodly Christmas poutiness of all the unhappy Christmas shoppers in Christendom during The Christmas Season. And while I’m pretty much opposed to the death penalty, I’d make an exception for supervisors who require employees to wear Santa hats or elf costumes.
One wonders if that long-ago innkeeper wore plastic antlers and greeted the tired travelers Mary and Joseph with a forced “Happy holidays! Do you have a reservation? Visa? Or Mastercard? And what discount card will you be using? And how many days will you be staying with us? Hey, ya like animals?”
St. Luke, tell me the Story again.
So thoroughly did our Puritan ancestors purge Christmas from the culture that in the New England colonies the observance of Advent or Christmas was a crime. Save for Anglicans and Catholics, Christmas was not much a part of the American tradition until the middle of the 19th century when Charles Dickens’ stories and Prince Albert’s Christmas tree generated the holiday as a secular fashion.
Advent isn’t much observed at all, not even as a generic late-autumn holiday. Instead, America is for its sins burdened with a wholly artificial construct called The Christmas Season.
That Season is upon us, That Season when folks talk about putting Christ back into Christmas and then skip divine services on Christmas day itself. And can a mere human actually put Christ anywhere anyway?
There are elements of The Christmas Season that make one despair of salvation: A Christmas Carol comes to mind, and Hallmark movies. Surely every time It’s a Wonderful Life is broadcast an angel rips its wings off. Maybe the Puritans foresaw all that, and that was why they banned Christmas.
Christmas is seldom without an adjective anymore. Even Dickens had the decency to leave the name of the holiday alone, but now the marketers of music and movies pile on the descriptors in order to peddle to niche audiences: White Christmas, A Muppet Christmas, Rocky Mountain Christmas, and, I suppose, The Ground Squirrels’ Christmas, An Ozark Christmas, An Irish Christmas, A Three (or is it four?) Tenors Christmas, A Country Christmas, Somebody’s Country Christmas, Somebody Else’s Country Ozark Christmas, Somebody Else’s Tennessee Country Ozark Farm Christmas, A Cowboy Christmas, A Cajun Christmas, An Ol’ Fashioned Christmas, A Victorian Christmas, Some Girl in an Amish Bonnet Christmas, A Down-Home Christmas, A Down East Christmas, and maybe even The Blair Witch Christmas Reunion Special.
I suppose three (or four) tenors for Christmas is nice, but why not The Three Electricians for Christmas? When the power fails, sturdy fellows in Nomex suits are indeed The Three Wise Electricians, bearing gifts of light and heat and running water.
Hospital workers, too, deserve their own Christmas movie, as do cops and firemen and plumbers and ambulance crews and soldiers and all the other folks who on Christmas do not get to snuggle in warm beds with visions of anything because they’re on duty. Wassail? Eggnog? No, gimme another go-cup of that hairy-legged two-in-the-morning coffee.
Waiters and retail clerks deserve combat pay, not just their own movie or song, for enduring the ungodly Christmas poutiness of all the unhappy Christmas shoppers in Christendom during The Christmas Season. And while I’m pretty much opposed to the death penalty, I’d make an exception for supervisors who require employees to wear Santa hats or elf costumes.
One wonders if that long-ago innkeeper wore plastic antlers and greeted the tired travelers Mary and Joseph with a forced “Happy holidays! Do you have a reservation? Visa? Or Mastercard? And what discount card will you be using? And how many days will you be staying with us? Hey, ya like animals?”
St. Luke, tell me the Story again.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Who Cleaned up the Park?
Mack Hall
Someone said that someone said that someone else said that the ‘net said that someone said that the sexiest accent in the world is Irish. Well, who could argue with that sourcing, eh?
Our own rural accents are admittedly pretty cool some of the time. A certain silver-haired cooking-show gal, for instance, has a lovely voice, but there’s just something de Medici about her intonation that makes one suspect that she knows where several shallow graves are located. But our East Texas accent, the sound of one long eyebrow whining, cannot be not recommended for public consumption or wide distribution.
Business people from East Texas should never do their own radio commercials. In the days of that “Iz iyit trewwwwwww? Iz iyit trewwwwwwwww? Iz iyit reelly trewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww?” thing my reflexes developed so efficiently that I could hit the OFF button long before the last syllable of the first “iz iyit trewwwwwwwwwwwww” faded away to die an agonized and prolonged Wagnerian death in some other sufferer’s ears.
One wonders how many professionally-made commercials with trained voices are missed because the radio listener kills the sound of an amateur’s unfortunate baying and doesn’t get back to the station until after he’s had therapy. If I were buying a commercial I would specify to the radio sales folks that my expensive and attractive commercial should never be positioned behind Nasal Bubba or Adenoidal Cletus lest the good commercial go unheard due to dead-air time.
Equally annoying is the endless repetition of a commercial. The public-service spot about two teen lads leaving a party when the drinking started was pretty cute the first two or three hundred times I heard it, but repetition, vain repetition, now sends my lightning fingers of radio death flying to the dial.
If you never listen to the radio, let me give you the exposition: two teens come home late at night, and are ambushed by Dad, who wonders why his sons are late and why they are wearing food (fathers are like that). They explain that they and some others wisely left an unchaperoned party when drinking began, and drove to a fast-food joint for, well, some fast-food. But they did not eat the food; they then motored to the park and, for reasons best known to teens, threw the food at each other. The wise father is amused at the narrative, proud of his sons for their mature judgment, and sends them upstairs for baths and bed.
Okay, fine, good message, cute presentation.
But upon hearing this fictional narrative several dozen times, one begins to wonder: who cleaned up the park?
Take-out food comes with layers of wrappings, a paper bag, tiny envelopes of salt and pepper, little plastic thingies with sauces, drinks in cups, straws for the drinks, a receipt, and so on. And then there’s the food itself, tacos and hamburgers in this story. All over the park, rotting and fly-blown and malodorous by the time the sun rises.
Littering is hardly to be compared to underaged drinking, but it’s still illegal in its own modest way, it’s not considerate, and someone has to clean up the mess.
I imagine anyone who grew up in the hungry 1930s latched on to the food wastage thing immediately. In a world in which there really are hungry children (I’m not talking about the fat boy waddling down the street with a bag of ‘tater chips in one hand and his cell ‘phone in the other), is this scenario a good idea? Will the lads keep a straight face as they help collect canned food for the genuinely poor at Thanksgiving and Christmas?
Well, we’ll leave the park cleanup crew to their work. Maybe they will enjoy listening to the radio while cleaning up the litter.
Someone said that someone said that someone else said that the ‘net said that someone said that the sexiest accent in the world is Irish. Well, who could argue with that sourcing, eh?
Our own rural accents are admittedly pretty cool some of the time. A certain silver-haired cooking-show gal, for instance, has a lovely voice, but there’s just something de Medici about her intonation that makes one suspect that she knows where several shallow graves are located. But our East Texas accent, the sound of one long eyebrow whining, cannot be not recommended for public consumption or wide distribution.
Business people from East Texas should never do their own radio commercials. In the days of that “Iz iyit trewwwwwww? Iz iyit trewwwwwwwww? Iz iyit reelly trewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww?” thing my reflexes developed so efficiently that I could hit the OFF button long before the last syllable of the first “iz iyit trewwwwwwwwwwwww” faded away to die an agonized and prolonged Wagnerian death in some other sufferer’s ears.
One wonders how many professionally-made commercials with trained voices are missed because the radio listener kills the sound of an amateur’s unfortunate baying and doesn’t get back to the station until after he’s had therapy. If I were buying a commercial I would specify to the radio sales folks that my expensive and attractive commercial should never be positioned behind Nasal Bubba or Adenoidal Cletus lest the good commercial go unheard due to dead-air time.
Equally annoying is the endless repetition of a commercial. The public-service spot about two teen lads leaving a party when the drinking started was pretty cute the first two or three hundred times I heard it, but repetition, vain repetition, now sends my lightning fingers of radio death flying to the dial.
If you never listen to the radio, let me give you the exposition: two teens come home late at night, and are ambushed by Dad, who wonders why his sons are late and why they are wearing food (fathers are like that). They explain that they and some others wisely left an unchaperoned party when drinking began, and drove to a fast-food joint for, well, some fast-food. But they did not eat the food; they then motored to the park and, for reasons best known to teens, threw the food at each other. The wise father is amused at the narrative, proud of his sons for their mature judgment, and sends them upstairs for baths and bed.
Okay, fine, good message, cute presentation.
But upon hearing this fictional narrative several dozen times, one begins to wonder: who cleaned up the park?
Take-out food comes with layers of wrappings, a paper bag, tiny envelopes of salt and pepper, little plastic thingies with sauces, drinks in cups, straws for the drinks, a receipt, and so on. And then there’s the food itself, tacos and hamburgers in this story. All over the park, rotting and fly-blown and malodorous by the time the sun rises.
Littering is hardly to be compared to underaged drinking, but it’s still illegal in its own modest way, it’s not considerate, and someone has to clean up the mess.
I imagine anyone who grew up in the hungry 1930s latched on to the food wastage thing immediately. In a world in which there really are hungry children (I’m not talking about the fat boy waddling down the street with a bag of ‘tater chips in one hand and his cell ‘phone in the other), is this scenario a good idea? Will the lads keep a straight face as they help collect canned food for the genuinely poor at Thanksgiving and Christmas?
Well, we’ll leave the park cleanup crew to their work. Maybe they will enjoy listening to the radio while cleaning up the litter.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Remembrance Day: "Let Perpetual Light Shine Upon Them"
Mack Hall
In a happier the world the remembrances of Armistice Day / Veterans’ Day would all be old ones told in peacetime, jolly boot-camp stories for the kiddies and the civilians, mostly. A veteran eventually learns to keep other matters in his heart, and to change the subject or simply walk away discreetly when someone who got no closer to war than his dime-store camouflage and collection of John Wayne films begins some hand-me-down, second-hand, thousand-yard-stare yarn. He heard it from his buddy, you see, and his buddy was a Green Beret / Army Ranger / CIA commando / Marine / Navy SEAL / special operative in an organization so secret that blah-blah-blah, so he ought to know, eh.
But in the middle of a long, long war the stories of the long-ago, even the funny ones about some barracks buffoonery, somehow seem inappropriate. Soldiers are dying now, some shot in the back by a self-indulgent, emo ess of a bee whose duty was to watch their backs.
The Wall Street Journal, Fox, and other sources have told us something of the thirteen unarmed Americans murdered last week:
Lt. Col Juanita Warman, 55, of Maryland was a physician’s assistant with two daughters and six grandchildren. She worked her way through the University of Pittsburgh.
Major Libardo Caraveo, 52, of Virginia came to America from Mexico in his teens. He earned his doctorate in psychology at the University of Arizona and worked with special-needs children in Tucson schools before beginning private practice. He was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan.
Capt. John Gaffaney, 52, of California was a psychiatric nurse who also was on base clearing for Afghanistan. He served in the Navy and then in the California National Guard as a young man, and two years ago managed to get back into the service to help the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan deal with the trauma. He is survived by a wife and a son.
Captain Russell Seager, 41, of Wisconsin joined the Army a few years ago, and was a psychiatrist who wanted to help soldiers returning from war adapt to civilian life.
Staff Sgt. Justin Decrow, 32, of Indiana was helping train soldiers on how to help veterans home from the wars with the paperwork. He and his wife have a 13-year-old daughter.
Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Wisconsin told her mother she was going to get Osama Bin Ladin. Sergeant Kreuger’s mother told her she couldn’t take on Osama by herself.
“Watch me,” she replied.
And maybe she would have, if she hadn’t been murdered by an American Army officer before she got the chance.
Sergeant Amy was to have been posted to Afghanistan in December.
Spc. Jason Dean Hunt, 22, of Oklahoma had been in the Army for almost four years, including a tour in Iraq. He had been married only two months.
Spc. Frederick Greene, 29, of Tennessee was assigned to the 16th Signal Company at Fort Hood.
PFC Aaron Nemelka,19, of Utah joined the Utah National Guard as his form of service instead of going on mission for his church. He was to be sent to Afghanistan in January.
PFC Michael Pearson, 22, of Illinois had telephoned his parents only two days before his death to tell them he would be home for Christmas.
PFC Kham Xiong, 23, of Minnesota was a father of three whose family has a tradition of military service. Both his grandfather and his father fought against the Pathet Lao and the Viet-Cong, and his brother, Nelson is a Marine in Afghanistan.
Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, of Illinois loved poetry and dancing. She had just returned home from Iraq, and was a career soldier.
Michael G. Cahill, 62, of Texas was a civilian employee, a physician’s assistant back at work after a heart attack two weeks before. He and his wife, Joleen, were married for 37 years. He was much loved for his many beyond-the-call-of-duty kindnesses to young soldiers returning from the war or on their way overseas.
Thirteen good Americans.
“Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.”
- Roman Missal
In a happier the world the remembrances of Armistice Day / Veterans’ Day would all be old ones told in peacetime, jolly boot-camp stories for the kiddies and the civilians, mostly. A veteran eventually learns to keep other matters in his heart, and to change the subject or simply walk away discreetly when someone who got no closer to war than his dime-store camouflage and collection of John Wayne films begins some hand-me-down, second-hand, thousand-yard-stare yarn. He heard it from his buddy, you see, and his buddy was a Green Beret / Army Ranger / CIA commando / Marine / Navy SEAL / special operative in an organization so secret that blah-blah-blah, so he ought to know, eh.
But in the middle of a long, long war the stories of the long-ago, even the funny ones about some barracks buffoonery, somehow seem inappropriate. Soldiers are dying now, some shot in the back by a self-indulgent, emo ess of a bee whose duty was to watch their backs.
The Wall Street Journal, Fox, and other sources have told us something of the thirteen unarmed Americans murdered last week:
Lt. Col Juanita Warman, 55, of Maryland was a physician’s assistant with two daughters and six grandchildren. She worked her way through the University of Pittsburgh.
Major Libardo Caraveo, 52, of Virginia came to America from Mexico in his teens. He earned his doctorate in psychology at the University of Arizona and worked with special-needs children in Tucson schools before beginning private practice. He was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan.
Capt. John Gaffaney, 52, of California was a psychiatric nurse who also was on base clearing for Afghanistan. He served in the Navy and then in the California National Guard as a young man, and two years ago managed to get back into the service to help the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan deal with the trauma. He is survived by a wife and a son.
Captain Russell Seager, 41, of Wisconsin joined the Army a few years ago, and was a psychiatrist who wanted to help soldiers returning from war adapt to civilian life.
Staff Sgt. Justin Decrow, 32, of Indiana was helping train soldiers on how to help veterans home from the wars with the paperwork. He and his wife have a 13-year-old daughter.
Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Wisconsin told her mother she was going to get Osama Bin Ladin. Sergeant Kreuger’s mother told her she couldn’t take on Osama by herself.
“Watch me,” she replied.
And maybe she would have, if she hadn’t been murdered by an American Army officer before she got the chance.
Sergeant Amy was to have been posted to Afghanistan in December.
Spc. Jason Dean Hunt, 22, of Oklahoma had been in the Army for almost four years, including a tour in Iraq. He had been married only two months.
Spc. Frederick Greene, 29, of Tennessee was assigned to the 16th Signal Company at Fort Hood.
PFC Aaron Nemelka,19, of Utah joined the Utah National Guard as his form of service instead of going on mission for his church. He was to be sent to Afghanistan in January.
PFC Michael Pearson, 22, of Illinois had telephoned his parents only two days before his death to tell them he would be home for Christmas.
PFC Kham Xiong, 23, of Minnesota was a father of three whose family has a tradition of military service. Both his grandfather and his father fought against the Pathet Lao and the Viet-Cong, and his brother, Nelson is a Marine in Afghanistan.
Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, of Illinois loved poetry and dancing. She had just returned home from Iraq, and was a career soldier.
Michael G. Cahill, 62, of Texas was a civilian employee, a physician’s assistant back at work after a heart attack two weeks before. He and his wife, Joleen, were married for 37 years. He was much loved for his many beyond-the-call-of-duty kindnesses to young soldiers returning from the war or on their way overseas.
Thirteen good Americans.
“Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.”
- Roman Missal
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Death Lodge
Mack Hall
In an episode of the minimalist police drama Adam 12, two of The People burglarize a house while it is under a fumigation tent. Dragged out by officers in hazmat suits, one of the idiots…um…citizens dies from the fumigants. While being questioned the surviving dumb…er…victim of an oppressive society brags about being a draft dodger because he and his friend did not want to die for an evil capitalist system. A police officer, indicating the corpse, asks the salient question: “So what did your buddy die for?”
Several weeks ago in Arizona three people died from a spiritual (cough) retreat involving starvation, dehydration, humiliation, and, finally, several hours in what has been called a sweat lodge (it isn’t) suffering oxygen deprivation or toxic fumes or both.
Perhaps the death lodgers got to beat on some drums and chant gen-you-wine old-timey songs to the Earth-Mother-Goddess-Nature-Green-Spirit-Principle-of-Me, Me, Me before they departed this vale of bottled water, clutching icons of Al Gore to their hearts.
One thing we do know is that their checks cleared before they died; one-with-nature spiritual guides want their money up front.
Religious frauds are as old as Delphi, and Chaucer makes fun of them in The Canterbury Tales: Get’cher red-hot relics right ‘chere! I got’cha a piece of the sail of St. Peter’s boat! Who wants to bid on Veronica’s veil, eh? Modern Oracles and Pardoners are given blessings by talk-show hosts and even by presidents, and make their little pile selling books and cds and dvds and magic amulets and handkerchiefs soaked with holy essences, and the world wags on. Occasionally, though, some, like Jim Jones, who posed with President Jimmy Carter, begin believing in their own detritus and then the dead bodies pile up.
This last lot of corpses in Arizona were apparently quite wealthy; according to the news they and some 57 other seekers after truth each paid $9,000 in order to be spiritually enlightened.
$9,000. If you had that much loose holiness jingling in your pockets what would you do with it? You could buy the really high-dollar lawn mower and have money left over for gasoline for the thing. You could take a really good vacation. You could pay off the car. You could stash it away in the kid’s college fund. You could find some genuinely poor people – not fatties with cell ‘phones – and help fund their job searches. You could help a museum with its bills. You could do lots of good things. Hey, you could give it me.
But would you ever pay some bogus holy dude $9,000 to starve you, deprive you of sleep, and humiliate you?
Sixty of your well-to-do fellow citizens did. $9,000 x 60 = $540,000 for a long weekend of one-ness with the Sky-God Vi-Sa’Card and the Earth-Mother Pi’n’Number.
You and I are in the wrong business.
Man, give me $9,000 and I’ll tell you whatever makes you feel all holy and stuff. I’ll even throw in a few fair-trade bagels and a sleeping bag made from recycled goat hair or something. For a sweat lodge I’ll stake out that blue FEMA tarp left over from Rita, and you can sit crossed-legged in there and chant mantra-rays or mantas or mantels to the Moon Goddess Tiffany. I’ll leave the sides open so you can breathe. In the meantime, I’ll be inside in the air-conditioning checking my account on the ‘puter to make sure your check cleared.
A human’s quest is not for some sort of vague, fluffy self-fulfillment, whatever self-fulfillment means. One’s quest is for the truth. Not my truth, or your truth, or some voted-upon truth, because there are no such things. There is only the truth. And you start from there. And there is no charge.
The police officer in the story asks a man what his friend died for. C. S. Lewis in one of his essays reminds us to ask ourselves what we live for.
In an episode of the minimalist police drama Adam 12, two of The People burglarize a house while it is under a fumigation tent. Dragged out by officers in hazmat suits, one of the idiots…um…citizens dies from the fumigants. While being questioned the surviving dumb…er…victim of an oppressive society brags about being a draft dodger because he and his friend did not want to die for an evil capitalist system. A police officer, indicating the corpse, asks the salient question: “So what did your buddy die for?”
Several weeks ago in Arizona three people died from a spiritual (cough) retreat involving starvation, dehydration, humiliation, and, finally, several hours in what has been called a sweat lodge (it isn’t) suffering oxygen deprivation or toxic fumes or both.
Perhaps the death lodgers got to beat on some drums and chant gen-you-wine old-timey songs to the Earth-Mother-Goddess-Nature-Green-Spirit-Principle-of-Me, Me, Me before they departed this vale of bottled water, clutching icons of Al Gore to their hearts.
One thing we do know is that their checks cleared before they died; one-with-nature spiritual guides want their money up front.
Religious frauds are as old as Delphi, and Chaucer makes fun of them in The Canterbury Tales: Get’cher red-hot relics right ‘chere! I got’cha a piece of the sail of St. Peter’s boat! Who wants to bid on Veronica’s veil, eh? Modern Oracles and Pardoners are given blessings by talk-show hosts and even by presidents, and make their little pile selling books and cds and dvds and magic amulets and handkerchiefs soaked with holy essences, and the world wags on. Occasionally, though, some, like Jim Jones, who posed with President Jimmy Carter, begin believing in their own detritus and then the dead bodies pile up.
This last lot of corpses in Arizona were apparently quite wealthy; according to the news they and some 57 other seekers after truth each paid $9,000 in order to be spiritually enlightened.
$9,000. If you had that much loose holiness jingling in your pockets what would you do with it? You could buy the really high-dollar lawn mower and have money left over for gasoline for the thing. You could take a really good vacation. You could pay off the car. You could stash it away in the kid’s college fund. You could find some genuinely poor people – not fatties with cell ‘phones – and help fund their job searches. You could help a museum with its bills. You could do lots of good things. Hey, you could give it me.
But would you ever pay some bogus holy dude $9,000 to starve you, deprive you of sleep, and humiliate you?
Sixty of your well-to-do fellow citizens did. $9,000 x 60 = $540,000 for a long weekend of one-ness with the Sky-God Vi-Sa’Card and the Earth-Mother Pi’n’Number.
You and I are in the wrong business.
Man, give me $9,000 and I’ll tell you whatever makes you feel all holy and stuff. I’ll even throw in a few fair-trade bagels and a sleeping bag made from recycled goat hair or something. For a sweat lodge I’ll stake out that blue FEMA tarp left over from Rita, and you can sit crossed-legged in there and chant mantra-rays or mantas or mantels to the Moon Goddess Tiffany. I’ll leave the sides open so you can breathe. In the meantime, I’ll be inside in the air-conditioning checking my account on the ‘puter to make sure your check cleared.
A human’s quest is not for some sort of vague, fluffy self-fulfillment, whatever self-fulfillment means. One’s quest is for the truth. Not my truth, or your truth, or some voted-upon truth, because there are no such things. There is only the truth. And you start from there. And there is no charge.
The police officer in the story asks a man what his friend died for. C. S. Lewis in one of his essays reminds us to ask ourselves what we live for.
Death Lodge
Mack Hall
In an episode of the minimalist police drama Adam 12, two of The People burglarize a house while it is under a fumigation tent. Dragged out by officers in hazmat suits, one of the idiots…um…citizens dies from the fumigants. While being questioned the surviving dumb…er…victim of an oppressive society brags about being a draft dodger because he and his friend did not want to die for an evil capitalist system. A police officer, indicating the corpse, asks the salient question: “So what did your buddy die for?”
Several weeks ago in Arizona three people died from a spiritual (cough) retreat involving starvation, dehydration, humiliation, and, finally, several hours in what has been called a sweat lodge (it isn’t) suffering oxygen deprivation or toxic fumes or both.
Perhaps the death lodgers got to beat on some drums and chant gen-you-wine old-timey songs to the Earth-Mother-Goddess-Nature-Green-Spirit-Principle-of-Me, Me, Me before they departed this vale of bottled water, clutching icons of Al Gore to their hearts.
One thing we do know is that their checks cleared before they died; one-with-nature spiritual guides want their money up front.
Religious frauds are as old as Delphi, and Chaucer makes fun of them in The Canterbury Tales: Get’cher red-hot relics right ‘chere! I got’cha a piece of the sail of St. Peter’s boat! Who wants to bid on Veronica’s veil, eh? Modern Oracles and Pardoners are given blessings by talk-show hosts and even by presidents, and make their little pile selling books and cds and dvds and magic amulets and handkerchiefs soaked with holy essences, and the world wags on. Occasionally, though, some, like Jim Jones, who posed with President Jimmy Carter, begin believing in their own detritus and then the dead bodies pile up.
This last lot of corpses in Arizona were apparently quite wealthy; according to the news they and some 57 other seekers after truth each paid $9,000 in order to be spiritually enlightened.
$9,000. If you had that much loose holiness jingling in your pockets what would you do with it? You could buy the really high-dollar lawn mower and have money left over for gasoline for the thing. You could take a really good vacation. You could pay off the car. You could stash it away in the kid’s college fund. You could find some genuinely poor people – not fatties with cell ‘phones – and help fund their job searches. You could help a museum with its bills. You could do lots of good things. Hey, you could give it me.
But would you ever pay some bogus holy dude $9,000 to starve you, deprive you of sleep, and humiliate you?
Sixty of your well-to-do fellow citizens did. $9,000 x 60 = $540,000 for a long weekend of one-ness with the Sky-God Vi-Sa’Card and the Earth-Mother Pi’n’Number.
You and I are in the wrong business.
Man, give me $9,000 and I’ll tell you whatever makes you feel all holy and stuff. I’ll even throw in a few fair-trade bagels and a sleeping bag made from recycled goat hair or something. For a sweat lodge I’ll stake out that blue FEMA tarp left over from Rita, and you can sit crossed-legged in there and chant mantra-rays or mantas or mantels to the Moon Goddess Tiffany. I’ll leave the sides open so you can breathe. In the meantime, I’ll be inside in the air-conditioning checking my account on the ‘puter to make sure your check cleared.
A human’s quest is not for some sort of vague, fluffy self-fulfillment, whatever self-fulfillment means. One’s quest is for the truth. Not my truth, or your truth, or some voted-upon truth, because there are no such things. There is only the truth. And you start from there. And there is no charge.
The police officer in the story asks a man what his friend died for. C. S. Lewis in one of his essays reminds us to ask ourselves what we live for.
In an episode of the minimalist police drama Adam 12, two of The People burglarize a house while it is under a fumigation tent. Dragged out by officers in hazmat suits, one of the idiots…um…citizens dies from the fumigants. While being questioned the surviving dumb…er…victim of an oppressive society brags about being a draft dodger because he and his friend did not want to die for an evil capitalist system. A police officer, indicating the corpse, asks the salient question: “So what did your buddy die for?”
Several weeks ago in Arizona three people died from a spiritual (cough) retreat involving starvation, dehydration, humiliation, and, finally, several hours in what has been called a sweat lodge (it isn’t) suffering oxygen deprivation or toxic fumes or both.
Perhaps the death lodgers got to beat on some drums and chant gen-you-wine old-timey songs to the Earth-Mother-Goddess-Nature-Green-Spirit-Principle-of-Me, Me, Me before they departed this vale of bottled water, clutching icons of Al Gore to their hearts.
One thing we do know is that their checks cleared before they died; one-with-nature spiritual guides want their money up front.
Religious frauds are as old as Delphi, and Chaucer makes fun of them in The Canterbury Tales: Get’cher red-hot relics right ‘chere! I got’cha a piece of the sail of St. Peter’s boat! Who wants to bid on Veronica’s veil, eh? Modern Oracles and Pardoners are given blessings by talk-show hosts and even by presidents, and make their little pile selling books and cds and dvds and magic amulets and handkerchiefs soaked with holy essences, and the world wags on. Occasionally, though, some, like Jim Jones, who posed with President Jimmy Carter, begin believing in their own detritus and then the dead bodies pile up.
This last lot of corpses in Arizona were apparently quite wealthy; according to the news they and some 57 other seekers after truth each paid $9,000 in order to be spiritually enlightened.
$9,000. If you had that much loose holiness jingling in your pockets what would you do with it? You could buy the really high-dollar lawn mower and have money left over for gasoline for the thing. You could take a really good vacation. You could pay off the car. You could stash it away in the kid’s college fund. You could find some genuinely poor people – not fatties with cell ‘phones – and help fund their job searches. You could help a museum with its bills. You could do lots of good things. Hey, you could give it me.
But would you ever pay some bogus holy dude $9,000 to starve you, deprive you of sleep, and humiliate you?
Sixty of your well-to-do fellow citizens did. $9,000 x 60 = $540,000 for a long weekend of one-ness with the Sky-God Vi-Sa’Card and the Earth-Mother Pi’n’Number.
You and I are in the wrong business.
Man, give me $9,000 and I’ll tell you whatever makes you feel all holy and stuff. I’ll even throw in a few fair-trade bagels and a sleeping bag made from recycled goat hair or something. For a sweat lodge I’ll stake out that blue FEMA tarp left over from Rita, and you can sit crossed-legged in there and chant mantra-rays or mantas or mantels to the Moon Goddess Tiffany. I’ll leave the sides open so you can breathe. In the meantime, I’ll be inside in the air-conditioning checking my account on the ‘puter to make sure your check cleared.
A human’s quest is not for some sort of vague, fluffy self-fulfillment, whatever self-fulfillment means. One’s quest is for the truth. Not my truth, or your truth, or some voted-upon truth, because there are no such things. There is only the truth. And you start from there. And there is no charge.
The police officer in the story asks a man what his friend died for. C. S. Lewis in one of his essays reminds us to ask ourselves what we live for.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Moehammed O'Chang, Uiger-Irish-Han Detective
Mack Hall
I blame it all on Agatha Christie. In the 1920s she created the fictional detective Hercule Poirot based on the characteristics of real Belgian refugees she met in England during World War I. The gag worked so well that Poirot and his rather dim friend Captain Hastings have been the subjects of dozens of novels, short stories, and films for some eighty years.
In the past decade or so, multi-ethnic detectives appear to be a requirement for any new detective stories: Indian (as in sub-continent), Indian (as in Native American), African (as in Kenya), and combinations thereof indicate that nowadays ya can’t be a detective without a hyphen.
Sherlock Holmes had his pipe and Doctor Watson, Inspector Morse his cigarettes and Sergeant Lewis, and Chief Superintendent Foyle his Scotch and his driver Samantha, but in this chemical-free, pal-free era the new detectives are pretty much restricted to a dog or cat to help them along.
I propose to publishing companies these following chemically-correct, pet-friendly detectives:
Johann Smythe-Bulkovsky, Norwegian-English-Russian police detective and his herring, Bob.
Sammi Robichaux-Gianelli, transgendered Finnish-French-Italian spy and his/her reindeer, Bubba.
Paddy O’Hara-Moriarty, Newfoundland-Newfoundland-Newfoundland police inspector with three eyes, an Irish ancestry that needs a little more genetic diversity, and a talking codfish named Seamus that nobody else can see or hear.
Lupe McKenzie-Nguyen, Mexican-Canadian-Vietnamese private detective and her pal Sparky, a crime-solving electric eel.
Angus Hussein-Llewellyn, Scotch-Iraqi-Welsh police constable and his suicide-bomber hamster, Darryl.
Bubba Boudreau-Zulu, Texan-Cajun-Kenyan CSI geek and his springbok, Hoppy.
Rush Beck-Hannity, ‘merican sit-behind-a-desk-and-think-stuff crime non-fighter, you bet’cha, and his drooling pet fox, Sean. He doesn’t actually do anything; all he does is criticize working police officers and detectives.
X X-X, F.I.L.B.E.R.T. enforcer. If he wanted you to know any more he’d beat it into you.
Dr. Misloz Hans-Hans, Czech-Swiss-Dutch police consulting physician and his petri dish of intuitive bacteria.
Chef Cletus Rabinowitz-Park, the Tennessean-Israeli-Korean cooking-show host who dishes up omelettes and solves crimes using sign language, and his pal Handy the Signing Squirrel, who keeps being accused of making obscene gestures because squirrels haven’t as many fingers as humans.
So whatever happened to Hercule Poirot? He was busted for income-tax fraud and incarcerated in the little grey cells.
Ouch.
I blame it all on Agatha Christie. In the 1920s she created the fictional detective Hercule Poirot based on the characteristics of real Belgian refugees she met in England during World War I. The gag worked so well that Poirot and his rather dim friend Captain Hastings have been the subjects of dozens of novels, short stories, and films for some eighty years.
In the past decade or so, multi-ethnic detectives appear to be a requirement for any new detective stories: Indian (as in sub-continent), Indian (as in Native American), African (as in Kenya), and combinations thereof indicate that nowadays ya can’t be a detective without a hyphen.
Sherlock Holmes had his pipe and Doctor Watson, Inspector Morse his cigarettes and Sergeant Lewis, and Chief Superintendent Foyle his Scotch and his driver Samantha, but in this chemical-free, pal-free era the new detectives are pretty much restricted to a dog or cat to help them along.
I propose to publishing companies these following chemically-correct, pet-friendly detectives:
Johann Smythe-Bulkovsky, Norwegian-English-Russian police detective and his herring, Bob.
Sammi Robichaux-Gianelli, transgendered Finnish-French-Italian spy and his/her reindeer, Bubba.
Paddy O’Hara-Moriarty, Newfoundland-Newfoundland-Newfoundland police inspector with three eyes, an Irish ancestry that needs a little more genetic diversity, and a talking codfish named Seamus that nobody else can see or hear.
Lupe McKenzie-Nguyen, Mexican-Canadian-Vietnamese private detective and her pal Sparky, a crime-solving electric eel.
Angus Hussein-Llewellyn, Scotch-Iraqi-Welsh police constable and his suicide-bomber hamster, Darryl.
Bubba Boudreau-Zulu, Texan-Cajun-Kenyan CSI geek and his springbok, Hoppy.
Rush Beck-Hannity, ‘merican sit-behind-a-desk-and-think-stuff crime non-fighter, you bet’cha, and his drooling pet fox, Sean. He doesn’t actually do anything; all he does is criticize working police officers and detectives.
X X-X, F.I.L.B.E.R.T. enforcer. If he wanted you to know any more he’d beat it into you.
Dr. Misloz Hans-Hans, Czech-Swiss-Dutch police consulting physician and his petri dish of intuitive bacteria.
Chef Cletus Rabinowitz-Park, the Tennessean-Israeli-Korean cooking-show host who dishes up omelettes and solves crimes using sign language, and his pal Handy the Signing Squirrel, who keeps being accused of making obscene gestures because squirrels haven’t as many fingers as humans.
So whatever happened to Hercule Poirot? He was busted for income-tax fraud and incarcerated in the little grey cells.
Ouch.
Moehammed O'Chang, Uiger-Irish-Han Detective
Mack Hall
I blame it all on Agatha Christie. In the 1920s she created the fictional detective Hercule Poirot based on the characteristics of real Belgian refugees she met in England during World War I. The gag worked so well that Poirot and his rather dim friend Captain Hastings have been the subjects of dozens of novels, short stories, and films for some eighty years.
In the past decade or so, multi-ethnic detectives appear to be a requirement for any new detective stories: Indian (as in sub-continent), Indian (as in Native American), African (as in Kenya), and combinations thereof indicate that nowadays ya can’t be a detective without a hyphen.
Sherlock Holmes had his pipe and Doctor Watson, Inspector Morse his cigarettes and Sergeant Lewis, and Chief Superintendent Foyle his Scotch and his driver Samantha, but in this chemical-free, pal-free era the new detectives are pretty much restricted to a dog or cat to help them along.
I propose to publishing companies these following chemically-correct, pet-friendly detectives:
Johann Smythe-Bulkovsky, Norwegian-English-Russian police detective and his herring, Bob.
Sammi Robichaux-Gianelli, transgendered Finnish-French-Italian spy and his/her reindeer, Bubba.
Paddy O’Hara-Moriarty, Newfoundland-Newfoundland-Newfoundland police inspector with three eyes, an Irish ancestry that needs a little more genetic diversity, and a talking codfish named Seamus that nobody else can see or hear.
Lupe McKenzie-Nguyen, Mexican-Canadian-Vietnamese private detective and her pal Sparky, a crime-solving electric eel.
Angus Hussein-Llewellyn, Scotch-Iraqi-Welsh police constable and his suicide-bomber hamster, Darryl.
Bubba Boudreau-Zulu, Texan-Cajun-Kenyan CSI geek and his springbok, Hoppy.
Rush Beck-Hannity, ‘merican sit-behind-a-desk-and-think-stuff crime non-fighter, you bet’cha, and his drooling pet fox, Sean. He doesn’t actually do anything; all he does is criticize working police officers and detectives.
X X-X, F.I.L.B.E.R.T. enforcer. If he wanted you to know any more he’d beat it into you.
Dr. Misloz Hans-Hans, Czech-Swiss-Dutch police consulting physician and his petri dish of intuitive bacteria.
Chef Cletus Rabinowitz-Park, the Tennessean-Israeli-Korean cooking-show host who dishes up omelettes and solves crimes using sign language, and his pal Handy the Signing Squirrel, who keeps being accused of making obscene gestures because squirrels haven’t as many fingers as humans.
So whatever happened to Hercule Poirot? He was busted for income-tax fraud and incarcerated in the little grey cells.
Ouch.
I blame it all on Agatha Christie. In the 1920s she created the fictional detective Hercule Poirot based on the characteristics of real Belgian refugees she met in England during World War I. The gag worked so well that Poirot and his rather dim friend Captain Hastings have been the subjects of dozens of novels, short stories, and films for some eighty years.
In the past decade or so, multi-ethnic detectives appear to be a requirement for any new detective stories: Indian (as in sub-continent), Indian (as in Native American), African (as in Kenya), and combinations thereof indicate that nowadays ya can’t be a detective without a hyphen.
Sherlock Holmes had his pipe and Doctor Watson, Inspector Morse his cigarettes and Sergeant Lewis, and Chief Superintendent Foyle his Scotch and his driver Samantha, but in this chemical-free, pal-free era the new detectives are pretty much restricted to a dog or cat to help them along.
I propose to publishing companies these following chemically-correct, pet-friendly detectives:
Johann Smythe-Bulkovsky, Norwegian-English-Russian police detective and his herring, Bob.
Sammi Robichaux-Gianelli, transgendered Finnish-French-Italian spy and his/her reindeer, Bubba.
Paddy O’Hara-Moriarty, Newfoundland-Newfoundland-Newfoundland police inspector with three eyes, an Irish ancestry that needs a little more genetic diversity, and a talking codfish named Seamus that nobody else can see or hear.
Lupe McKenzie-Nguyen, Mexican-Canadian-Vietnamese private detective and her pal Sparky, a crime-solving electric eel.
Angus Hussein-Llewellyn, Scotch-Iraqi-Welsh police constable and his suicide-bomber hamster, Darryl.
Bubba Boudreau-Zulu, Texan-Cajun-Kenyan CSI geek and his springbok, Hoppy.
Rush Beck-Hannity, ‘merican sit-behind-a-desk-and-think-stuff crime non-fighter, you bet’cha, and his drooling pet fox, Sean. He doesn’t actually do anything; all he does is criticize working police officers and detectives.
X X-X, F.I.L.B.E.R.T. enforcer. If he wanted you to know any more he’d beat it into you.
Dr. Misloz Hans-Hans, Czech-Swiss-Dutch police consulting physician and his petri dish of intuitive bacteria.
Chef Cletus Rabinowitz-Park, the Tennessean-Israeli-Korean cooking-show host who dishes up omelettes and solves crimes using sign language, and his pal Handy the Signing Squirrel, who keeps being accused of making obscene gestures because squirrels haven’t as many fingers as humans.
So whatever happened to Hercule Poirot? He was busted for income-tax fraud and incarcerated in the little grey cells.
Ouch.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The Second-Hand Thousand-Yard Stare
Mack Hall
The Second-Hand Thousand-Yard Stare
or
The Doggerels of War
The Second-Hand Thousand-Yard Stare
or
The Doggerels of War
Dedicated to the Liars and The Saps Who Believe Them
Tell me ‘bout the action I never saw;
You heard it all from your brother-in-law,
Knowing from his tales that I wasn’t there:
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
Tell me ‘bout the river, the Vam Co Tay,
Your uncle or cousin, the Green Beret,
The man who’s seen it all, bullets through the air:
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
Tell me ‘bout the guys living ‘neath a bridge
Who lost their souls – they say – on some grim ridge,
And you believe their yarns bizarre and rare:
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
Tell me ‘bout your buddy, the Navy Seal
Who tells you all for a beer and a meal
Killed a thousand Cong with his steely glare:
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
Tell me ‘bout the heroes silent and strong;
They seem to talk to you, though, all night long,
By gosh, you’re special, and you want to share
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
You got no closer than a movie show
To Viet-Nam, but gosh you sure do know
All about war, and tell it with such flair:
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
The poor truth is -- real vets are such a bore,
A barber, plumber, or clerk in a store
But you believe the studs who preen and swear:
‘Nother damn, hand-me-down, thousand-yard stare
Well --
I ain’t no special nothin’; I’m just a man
Who knows a little bit of the lay of the land
Along the Cambodian border where
I never heard of a thousand-yard stare.
Tell me ‘bout the action I never saw;
You heard it all from your brother-in-law,
Knowing from his tales that I wasn’t there:
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
Tell me ‘bout the river, the Vam Co Tay,
Your uncle or cousin, the Green Beret,
The man who’s seen it all, bullets through the air:
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
Tell me ‘bout the guys living ‘neath a bridge
Who lost their souls – they say – on some grim ridge,
And you believe their yarns bizarre and rare:
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
Tell me ‘bout your buddy, the Navy Seal
Who tells you all for a beer and a meal
Killed a thousand Cong with his steely glare:
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
Tell me ‘bout the heroes silent and strong;
They seem to talk to you, though, all night long,
By gosh, you’re special, and you want to share
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
You got no closer than a movie show
To Viet-Nam, but gosh you sure do know
All about war, and tell it with such flair:
The same old, second-hand, thousand-yard stare
The poor truth is -- real vets are such a bore,
A barber, plumber, or clerk in a store
But you believe the studs who preen and swear:
‘Nother damn, hand-me-down, thousand-yard stare
Well --
I ain’t no special nothin’; I’m just a man
Who knows a little bit of the lay of the land
Along the Cambodian border where
I never heard of a thousand-yard stare.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Honk if You Cheered for the Iceberg
Mack Hall
Bumper stickers are not nearly as popular as they once were, but they’re still rather good fun. A young friend gave me one that reads EARTH FIRST – WE’LL LOG THE OTHER PLANETS LATER. In that same jolly spirit, here are some other bumper stickers we might enjoy seeing on someone else’s car:
So Your Kid Plays Soccer. Big Whoop.
My Other Car is Worse Than This Heap.
Follow Me to The Bright Light Free Will Four Square Full Gospel Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Lamb and Auto Detailing, the Reverend Doctor Brother Master Bishop Oafus Smith Bringing Massages Even Though This is a Weekday and Why Would You Follow a Complete Stranger to Some Church You Never Heard of Anyway?
Renew Your Medications if You (heart) Glenn Beck.
I’d Rather Not be Farming.
Rush Limbaugh’s Family Values: More Ex-Wives Than You Have Children.
Honk if You Miss the Habsburgs.
Fellowship of Pagan Athletes.
I’m Not Irish, Thank God.
I Wasn’t Born in Texas; My Company Made Me Move Here.
My Child is an Accelerated Reader – What Does That Mean?
End the Death Penalty – Except for Whoever Invented Reality Shows.
This Smith & Wesson is Protected by a Car.
Harp Seals – They Taste a Little Like Chicken.
I Miss The Inquisition. Really.
Give Thermonuclear War a Chance.
Cats – The Other White Meat.
My Parents Went To Germany And All They Bought Me Was This Stupid Mercedes-Benz.
Certified Public Accountants for Christ.
Please Come Back, George III; All is Forgiven.
The Next Time Germany Invades France, Let’s Stay Home.
It’s Not a Rain Forest, It’s a Jungle.
Let the Polar Bears Drown.
I’m Angry About the Results of the Elections in Which I was Too Lazy to Vote.
When the Last Farmer is EPA’d Out of Business, What Will You Eat?
Have You Read the Label on Your “I Love America” Tee Shirt?
Sophomores – A Renewable Food Source.
Honk if You Cheered for the English soldiers in Braveheart.
Honk if You Cheered for the English soldiers in Gandhi.
Honk if You Cheered for the Iceberg.
Bumper stickers are not nearly as popular as they once were, but they’re still rather good fun. A young friend gave me one that reads EARTH FIRST – WE’LL LOG THE OTHER PLANETS LATER. In that same jolly spirit, here are some other bumper stickers we might enjoy seeing on someone else’s car:
So Your Kid Plays Soccer. Big Whoop.
My Other Car is Worse Than This Heap.
Follow Me to The Bright Light Free Will Four Square Full Gospel Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Lamb and Auto Detailing, the Reverend Doctor Brother Master Bishop Oafus Smith Bringing Massages Even Though This is a Weekday and Why Would You Follow a Complete Stranger to Some Church You Never Heard of Anyway?
Renew Your Medications if You (heart) Glenn Beck.
I’d Rather Not be Farming.
Rush Limbaugh’s Family Values: More Ex-Wives Than You Have Children.
Honk if You Miss the Habsburgs.
Fellowship of Pagan Athletes.
I’m Not Irish, Thank God.
I Wasn’t Born in Texas; My Company Made Me Move Here.
My Child is an Accelerated Reader – What Does That Mean?
End the Death Penalty – Except for Whoever Invented Reality Shows.
This Smith & Wesson is Protected by a Car.
Harp Seals – They Taste a Little Like Chicken.
I Miss The Inquisition. Really.
Give Thermonuclear War a Chance.
Cats – The Other White Meat.
My Parents Went To Germany And All They Bought Me Was This Stupid Mercedes-Benz.
Certified Public Accountants for Christ.
Please Come Back, George III; All is Forgiven.
The Next Time Germany Invades France, Let’s Stay Home.
It’s Not a Rain Forest, It’s a Jungle.
Let the Polar Bears Drown.
I’m Angry About the Results of the Elections in Which I was Too Lazy to Vote.
When the Last Farmer is EPA’d Out of Business, What Will You Eat?
Have You Read the Label on Your “I Love America” Tee Shirt?
Sophomores – A Renewable Food Source.
Honk if You Cheered for the English soldiers in Braveheart.
Honk if You Cheered for the English soldiers in Gandhi.
Honk if You Cheered for the Iceberg.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
A Shot in the Light
Mack Hall
In the next few weeks Americans must make a life-or-death decision for themselves and for their children – ‘flu shots or ‘flu shots-not.
For perhaps two generations we Americans have come to take as a given that we and our children should live healthy lives and die of old age. We have so sheltered ourselves in this matter that we have tossed the reality down the Orwellian Memory Hole – humans haven’t often lived much past thirty. A visit to any rural cemetery lying silently under the sighing pines reminds us of that hard truth, because next to any adult grave one often finds four or five tiny little graves which, if marked at all, will read simply “Baby,” over and over. In the terrible old days young parents did not choose a name until they knew the child would live, and they weren’t terribly optimistic about that.
A diagnosis of pneumonia, once a pronouncement of death, is seldom exciting now, and polio is thought by some to be found only on The History Channel. Vaccines and antibiotics, those wonderful gifts to civilization, are now sometimes questioned as unnatural and unnecessary by generations with no memory of iron lungs and pale hopes that at least some of the children might survive. Some young parents have come to fear the vaccines and medicines that have permitted millions of children to grow up instead of disappearing into forest cemeteries.
Well, here’s some bad news – an injection might indeed kill you or your child. So might a bee sting or a handful of peanuts or a whiff of weed allergens with the next northwest wind. A young acquaintance of mine, now a doctoral candidate, must carry an emergency allergen injector-thingie with her for the rest of her life. It’s a bother, but, hey, it beats being dead.
With immunizations as in most other matters, a parent is morally obligated to make decisions based on knowledge, not on hallway rumors and ‘net chatter. Freedom of information is so essential to a democracy that any restriction on the exchange of ideas is abominable, but the other half of that freedom is the burden of responsibility to seek out the truth.
A genuinely grieving father may be very sincere in his adamant belief that daily bathing caused his son to die of a bone infection, and he may freely post his belief on the ‘net and form clubs and causes. But what are the facts in the matter? Elementary hygiene makes it clear that daily bathing is part of the package of good practices that keep people alive. Should one anecdote, a study of somewhat less than a hundred, as Doctor Bailey of happy memory once said sardonically, then cause a generation of children to remain unwashed?
If a child suffers diarrhea from contamination on improperly cleaned lettuce do we then ban all fresh vegetables from her diet?
If a child eats a grilled-cheese sandwich one day and then falls off his bicycle the next, is there a connection that leads one to forbid grilled-cheese sandwiches?
Rumors, gossips, anecdotes, and conspiracy theories must not inform a mother or father’s decision on the child’s health care.
Take the child to the physician or nurse-practitioner, speak of your concerns, and then LISTEN. Physicians and NPs are, like, you know, smart and stuff. They did not spend their university years reading Jean-Paul Sartre and Bella Abzug, writing revolutionary manifestoes for the university newspaper, and protesting EvilHitlerBush; they employed their time in the texts and laboratories and hospitals under the guidance of physicians who knew how to save lives.
Listen. Think. And then make an informed decision.
There are no guarantees, as your health-care provider will tell you, and the choice must be yours. Pretty heavy burden, eh?
In the next few weeks Americans must make a life-or-death decision for themselves and for their children – ‘flu shots or ‘flu shots-not.
For perhaps two generations we Americans have come to take as a given that we and our children should live healthy lives and die of old age. We have so sheltered ourselves in this matter that we have tossed the reality down the Orwellian Memory Hole – humans haven’t often lived much past thirty. A visit to any rural cemetery lying silently under the sighing pines reminds us of that hard truth, because next to any adult grave one often finds four or five tiny little graves which, if marked at all, will read simply “Baby,” over and over. In the terrible old days young parents did not choose a name until they knew the child would live, and they weren’t terribly optimistic about that.
A diagnosis of pneumonia, once a pronouncement of death, is seldom exciting now, and polio is thought by some to be found only on The History Channel. Vaccines and antibiotics, those wonderful gifts to civilization, are now sometimes questioned as unnatural and unnecessary by generations with no memory of iron lungs and pale hopes that at least some of the children might survive. Some young parents have come to fear the vaccines and medicines that have permitted millions of children to grow up instead of disappearing into forest cemeteries.
Well, here’s some bad news – an injection might indeed kill you or your child. So might a bee sting or a handful of peanuts or a whiff of weed allergens with the next northwest wind. A young acquaintance of mine, now a doctoral candidate, must carry an emergency allergen injector-thingie with her for the rest of her life. It’s a bother, but, hey, it beats being dead.
With immunizations as in most other matters, a parent is morally obligated to make decisions based on knowledge, not on hallway rumors and ‘net chatter. Freedom of information is so essential to a democracy that any restriction on the exchange of ideas is abominable, but the other half of that freedom is the burden of responsibility to seek out the truth.
A genuinely grieving father may be very sincere in his adamant belief that daily bathing caused his son to die of a bone infection, and he may freely post his belief on the ‘net and form clubs and causes. But what are the facts in the matter? Elementary hygiene makes it clear that daily bathing is part of the package of good practices that keep people alive. Should one anecdote, a study of somewhat less than a hundred, as Doctor Bailey of happy memory once said sardonically, then cause a generation of children to remain unwashed?
If a child suffers diarrhea from contamination on improperly cleaned lettuce do we then ban all fresh vegetables from her diet?
If a child eats a grilled-cheese sandwich one day and then falls off his bicycle the next, is there a connection that leads one to forbid grilled-cheese sandwiches?
Rumors, gossips, anecdotes, and conspiracy theories must not inform a mother or father’s decision on the child’s health care.
Take the child to the physician or nurse-practitioner, speak of your concerns, and then LISTEN. Physicians and NPs are, like, you know, smart and stuff. They did not spend their university years reading Jean-Paul Sartre and Bella Abzug, writing revolutionary manifestoes for the university newspaper, and protesting EvilHitlerBush; they employed their time in the texts and laboratories and hospitals under the guidance of physicians who knew how to save lives.
Listen. Think. And then make an informed decision.
There are no guarantees, as your health-care provider will tell you, and the choice must be yours. Pretty heavy burden, eh?
A Shot in the Light
Mack Hall
In the next few weeks Americans must make a life-or-death decision for themselves and for their children – ‘flu shots or ‘flu shots-not.
For perhaps two generations we Americans have come to take as a given that we and our children should live healthy lives and die of old age. We have so sheltered ourselves in this matter that we have tossed the reality down the Orwellian Memory Hole – humans haven’t often lived much past thirty. A visit to any rural cemetery lying silently under the sighing pines reminds us of that hard truth, because next to any adult grave one often finds four or five tiny little graves which, if marked at all, will read simply “Baby,” over and over. In the terrible old days young parents did not choose a name until they knew the child would live, and they weren’t terribly optimistic about that.
A diagnosis of pneumonia, once a pronouncement of death, is seldom exciting now, and polio is thought by some to be found only on The History Channel. Vaccines and antibiotics, those wonderful gifts to civilization, are now sometimes questioned as unnatural and unnecessary by generations with no memory of iron lungs and pale hopes that at least some of the children might survive. Some young parents have come to fear the vaccines and medicines that have permitted millions of children to grow up instead of disappearing into forest cemeteries.
Well, here’s some bad news – an injection might indeed kill you or your child. So might a bee sting or a handful of peanuts or a whiff of weed allergens with the next northwest wind. A young acquaintance of mine, now a doctoral candidate, must carry an emergency allergen injector-thingie with her for the rest of her life. It’s a bother, but, hey, it beats being dead.
With immunizations as in most other matters, a parent is morally obligated to make decisions based on knowledge, not on hallway rumors and ‘net chatter. Freedom of information is so essential to a democracy that any restriction on the exchange of ideas is abominable, but the other half of that freedom is the burden of responsibility to seek out the truth.
A genuinely grieving father may be very sincere in his adamant belief that daily bathing caused his son to die of a bone infection, and he may freely post his belief on the ‘net and form clubs and causes. But what are the facts in the matter? Elementary hygiene makes it clear that daily bathing is part of the package of good practices that keep people alive. Should one anecdote, a study of somewhat less than a hundred, as Doctor Bailey of happy memory once said sardonically, then cause a generation of children to remain unwashed?
If a child suffers diarrhea from contamination on improperly cleaned lettuce do we then ban all fresh vegetables from her diet?
If a child eats a grilled-cheese sandwich one day and then falls off his bicycle the next, is there a connection that leads one to forbid grilled-cheese sandwiches?
Rumors, gossips, anecdotes, and conspiracy theories must not inform a mother or father’s decision on the child’s health care.
Take the child to the physician or nurse-practitioner, speak of your concerns, and then LISTEN. Physicians and NPs are, like, you know, smart and stuff. They did not spend their university years reading Jean-Paul Sartre and Bella Abzug, writing revolutionary manifestoes for the university newspaper, and protesting EvilHitlerBush; they employed their time in the texts and laboratories and hospitals under the guidance of physicians who knew how to save lives.
Listen. Think. And then make an informed decision.
There are no guarantees, as your health-care provider will tell you, and the choice must be yours. Pretty heavy burden, eh?
In the next few weeks Americans must make a life-or-death decision for themselves and for their children – ‘flu shots or ‘flu shots-not.
For perhaps two generations we Americans have come to take as a given that we and our children should live healthy lives and die of old age. We have so sheltered ourselves in this matter that we have tossed the reality down the Orwellian Memory Hole – humans haven’t often lived much past thirty. A visit to any rural cemetery lying silently under the sighing pines reminds us of that hard truth, because next to any adult grave one often finds four or five tiny little graves which, if marked at all, will read simply “Baby,” over and over. In the terrible old days young parents did not choose a name until they knew the child would live, and they weren’t terribly optimistic about that.
A diagnosis of pneumonia, once a pronouncement of death, is seldom exciting now, and polio is thought by some to be found only on The History Channel. Vaccines and antibiotics, those wonderful gifts to civilization, are now sometimes questioned as unnatural and unnecessary by generations with no memory of iron lungs and pale hopes that at least some of the children might survive. Some young parents have come to fear the vaccines and medicines that have permitted millions of children to grow up instead of disappearing into forest cemeteries.
Well, here’s some bad news – an injection might indeed kill you or your child. So might a bee sting or a handful of peanuts or a whiff of weed allergens with the next northwest wind. A young acquaintance of mine, now a doctoral candidate, must carry an emergency allergen injector-thingie with her for the rest of her life. It’s a bother, but, hey, it beats being dead.
With immunizations as in most other matters, a parent is morally obligated to make decisions based on knowledge, not on hallway rumors and ‘net chatter. Freedom of information is so essential to a democracy that any restriction on the exchange of ideas is abominable, but the other half of that freedom is the burden of responsibility to seek out the truth.
A genuinely grieving father may be very sincere in his adamant belief that daily bathing caused his son to die of a bone infection, and he may freely post his belief on the ‘net and form clubs and causes. But what are the facts in the matter? Elementary hygiene makes it clear that daily bathing is part of the package of good practices that keep people alive. Should one anecdote, a study of somewhat less than a hundred, as Doctor Bailey of happy memory once said sardonically, then cause a generation of children to remain unwashed?
If a child suffers diarrhea from contamination on improperly cleaned lettuce do we then ban all fresh vegetables from her diet?
If a child eats a grilled-cheese sandwich one day and then falls off his bicycle the next, is there a connection that leads one to forbid grilled-cheese sandwiches?
Rumors, gossips, anecdotes, and conspiracy theories must not inform a mother or father’s decision on the child’s health care.
Take the child to the physician or nurse-practitioner, speak of your concerns, and then LISTEN. Physicians and NPs are, like, you know, smart and stuff. They did not spend their university years reading Jean-Paul Sartre and Bella Abzug, writing revolutionary manifestoes for the university newspaper, and protesting EvilHitlerBush; they employed their time in the texts and laboratories and hospitals under the guidance of physicians who knew how to save lives.
Listen. Think. And then make an informed decision.
There are no guarantees, as your health-care provider will tell you, and the choice must be yours. Pretty heavy burden, eh?
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