Another Gloomy Sunday

Colorado family and cryonics
company fight over possession
of deceased woman’s head.

It is Sunday again. I have no book review this week as I have been unable to find a recent book either in our Library or Book Store, and I have not been to Coeur d’Alene for a while. Such is life in the hinterlands. I decided to use this opportunity to showcase the recent collections to my hobby: “Collecting Sex Tips for Women as They Appear on Womens’ Magazine Covers.” I love this hobby and I like to believe I am the only one who pursues it so avidly. I was inspired by my visit to the supermarket today where I noticed the latest appropriate magazines had recently appeared.

Cosmopolitan is as usual probably the best source. Today I found “How to Touch Naked Men 16 Naughty Strokes That Will Send Him Over the Edge.” On the same cover was “The Love Lie that 52% of men Tell.” On the magazine, Self: “New Sex Trend: Bad Idea or Bedroom Bliss” (I confess to be actually tempted to read this but I did not falter from my policy of never reading any of these tips). Shape had “The Hot Sex Tip Women are Talking About,” Redbook produced, “Feel Sexier Tonight 21 Ways to Unleash Your Inner Vixen.” Finally, I thought Complete Woman might be this month’s winner: “Put the Oh in Orgasms, Deliciously Luscious Ways to Longer, More Explosive Bed-Rocking Orgasms.” It also offered “Sexy Scents That Seduce Any Man.” I realize I might learn a lot more if I actually ever read any of these tips, but at my age what would be the point?

On a serious note I am wondering if John Yoo is basically a psychopath. It is hard for me to think otherwise when I consider what he has actually done and said. First (presumably at the request of Bush/Cheney) he wrote memos authorizing torture, even though torture had long been prohibited under both American and International Law. If his memos were to be followed (which they apparently were) it meant the torture (and apparently in some cases even death) of a number of people (quite likely innocent people). That would seem bad enough. But when asked hypothetically if a President could order a child’s genitals to be crushed in front of his parents, he said he could. Given that he must have known torture was illegal in the first place this would seem completely outrageous. He has also claimed that a President could if necessary order an entire village of innocent people to be destroyed. Where could he have possibly come to this idea unless out of his tortured brain? His interpretations here apparently follow from his insistence that during wartime a President’s powers are absolute. This, however, requires a level of delusion above the ordinary, because it implies that laws simply do not exist, or at best exist only to be broken at the whim of a President. I say “a” President because if this were true of one President (or ruler of any kind) it would have to be also true of any President or ruler, which again would mean the absence of any recognized law. While it might be true that Presidents and rulers have indeed broken these laws in the past that does not mean such laws do not exist and have not been agreed to under the rules of warfare and such. Thus according to Yoo there is no point in outlawing the use of poison gas, rape, murder, theft, or any other crimes against humanity. We would still all be living according to the laws of the jungle. Perhaps this is what Yoo actually believes, but I doubt it. If he does believe it he is a psychopath and if he doesn’t believe it but authorized it anyway he is mentally deranged in some important way. Happily, the loony decision that he just made an error in judgment is not going to be the end of it, as the ACLU, Congress, and the Center for Constitutional Rights are not likely to accept that clearly flawed judgment.

On an even more serious (and depressing) note, let me quote for you the original lyrics for the song Gloomy Sunday:

It is autumn and the leaves are falling
All love has died on earth
The wind is weeping with sorrowful tears
My heart will never hope for a new spring again
My tears and my sorrows are all in vain
People are heartless, greedy and wicked…

Love has died!

The world has come to its end, hope has ceased to have a meaning
Cities are being wiped out, shrapnel is making music
Meadows area coloured red with human blood
There are dead people in the streets everywhere
I will say another quiet prayer.
People are sinners, Lord they make mistakes…

The World has ended!

This was written in 1933 by a Hungarian musician, Rezso Seress. It became known as the Hungarian Suicide Song. It was subsequently changed somewhat by others. The most famous version is that of Billie Holliday, in which the message is a much more personal reflection on the loss of a loved one. The song was banned by the BBC during WWII as being too depressing for the situation at the time. Seress himself committed suicide in 1978. I believe this original version is just as apt today as it was in 1933. Things change but often say the same.

LKBIQ:
Nobody ever committed suicide while reading a good book, but many have while trying to write one.
Robert Byrne

TILT:
The Olympics are no substitute for a good book.