Iran, Again, and Again

Australian woman gets 18 years
for running over and killing man
who threw cheeseballs at her car.

What is this insanity over Iran? It seems the MSM and mostly everyone else has some weird obsession with Iran and some paranoid belief that Iran is somehow a threat to the U.S. The House today voted overwhelmingly to impose severe sanctions on Iran for their (perfectly legal) civilian nuclear program. The Pentagon assured us that our current anti-missile defense program (that only works sometimes) would protect us from Iranian missiles directed at the U.S. I can’t help it, I have to ask, what missiles? The Iranians don’t have any missiles that would reach the U.S. and have, in fact, said they don’t intend to have any (or course they can’t be trusted, they’re Iranians). But even assuming that they did have such missiles, by what bizarre stretch of the imagination would make anyone believe they would fire them at the U.S.? This is an idea so crazy it almost leaves me speechless. Of course it fits right in with the equally insane idea that Iran is developing a nuclear bomb to attack Israel and the U.S. This is, in Ed Schultz’s terms, “psycho talk,” pure and simple, and there is no evidence they are doing so. And we are treated daily with the phrase “nothing is off the table,” referring to the possibility that either we or Israel or both of us might attack Iran at any moment. Perhaps there is some reason for this strange campaign against Iran that I do not understand, maybe it has something to do with our current relationship with Israel, you know, that little country that keeps telling President Obama to go “piss up a rope,” apparently confident that upon their command he will do so (and so far they seem to be right). This fear of Iran, if it is genuine and not just hyped up for some reason I don’t understand, is absolutely devoid of any semblance of reality whatsoever. It is stupid, counterproductive, without any basis in fact or reality, and demonstrates the poverty of our foreign policy. Now I see again that we are threatening Syria with the same “no option is off the table.” This is apparently with respect to the belief that Syria may be furnishing scud missiles to Hezbollah. They probably are. We apparently believe that Hezbollah, Lebanon, Palestinians, and others have no right to arm themselves against known Israeli aggression. They are just supposed to meekly submit to Israel colonialism and genocide. U.S. involvement in the Middle East, always on the side of Israel, is absolutely despicable, and at least in principle opposed to what we claim are our basic values. Obama has asked Israel to stop building illegal housing units in Jerusalem in order to restart the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks. Netanyahu has refused. What will Obama do? Put your money on the “nothing much” square.

It seems to be pretty much agreed and understood that the U.S. has been falling behind over time and is seemingly on its way to becoming a third-world (or worse) nation. We lag behind in education, technology, production, health care, infant mortality, and what have you. I think I have figured out why we are doing so poorly. In general it has to do with the fact that we have been systematically “dumbed down” through our inadequate educational system, our anti-intellectual ethos, and above all perhaps, our television. I think it has to do mostly with advertising, especially television advertising. Think about it, for years and years now we have been subjected to the most ridiculous, absurd, mind-deadening, infantile, idiotic, even surrealistic ads dreamed up by the minds of (probably) disturbed individuals who believe they are at the apex of business and creativity. Think of it, for as many years as you have been watching TV you have been exposed to chocolate chip cookies who drive cars and sing, bees that fly around and speak to you with an accent, cars that talk, animals that talk, even potholes that talk. There are people dressed as vitamins, carrots, turnips, bananas, and other fruits and vegetables, a bottle of beer having an affair with a sheaf of wheat, talking geckos, ducks, cows, horses, dogs, cats, blue bears wiping themselves in the woods with toilet paper, toys that dance and sing and come to life, babies that discuss their stock market investments, old people singing about their dentures, people dressed up as hamburgers, planets, and other things I cannot remember. The more TV you watch the more of this unreality you observe. Indeed, we watch so much of it, it has become normal, we accept it as part of our lives even though we probably don’t think about it. The TV programs are mind-deadening enough by themselves, but adding over time hours and hours of this total nonsensical irreality must be having an effect on us, numbing our brains, scrambling our thoughts, burrowing into our unconscious minds like parasitic worms that have found an apparently amenable host unaware of their insidious effects. Thus it is that we can listen to the likes of Limbaugh, Palin, Backmann, Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck, and others, seemingly unaware of the absurdity of their grotesquely distorted views of reality. It has by now all become just noise and more noise, the background against which we live in blissful ignorance of what used to be considered reality. I fear it has become true that from the point of view of an ordinary citizen there is no reality out there anymore, merely the incessant noise of the talking animals, cookies, cars talking heads and potholes that assail us daily, non-stop, and without mercy. We live, as Clifford Geertz suggested, “In webs of significance we ourselves have spun,” except ours are now webs of almost total insignificance.

LKBIQ:
There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.
Robertson Davies

TILT:
Whereas Gar flesh is edible, Gar eggs are toxic.

I Had to Concede

Scottish woman visiting police station
to retrieve a lost purse, arrested
for the cocaine it contained.

I have finally had to concede. I called my friend in Arizona and confessed that I thought he was right, politics in Arizona is definitely worse than politics in Idaho. We have had this ongoing dispute for several years. It came about because we are about the same age, both taught in Universities, and both retired at the same time several years ago, and both can be broadly designated as “progressives.” But for reasons I will not bother you with I ended up living in North Idaho and he ended up living in Arizona, both extremely conservative states with Republican dominated state legislatures, arguably to the right of Attila the Hun, certainly to the right of common sense and sanity.

For years we have amused each other with reports of our respective politicians and state legislatures. Here in Idaho we had our famous Larry Craig, often referred to as “The Senator from Boise Cascade.” Of course he became far more famous as “Wide Stance,” when he was arrested for soliciting sex in the Minneapolis Airport’s men’s room. He insisted repeatedly that he was not “Gay,” to which someone agreed and said he just liked kinky sex in bathrooms. In any case this was a source of considerable amusement. Then I reported that one of our state legislators actually suggested we change the Idaho Constitution so the state would have no responsibility at all for education. This was during one of the endless discussions of how it is we don’t need to have any education in Idaho, resulting in years of serious neglect of public schools and Universities here. This has resulted in numerous lawsuits involving how education is funded (or not funded) that to this day continue. Now we have Senators Crapo (the name itself offers a certain amusement) and Risch. All three of these Senators apparently follow the principles of an earlier Idaho Senator, Weldon B. Heyburn, who when asked about conservation (that is, not cutting all the timber as fast as possible) famously replied, “Let succeeding generations look out for themselves.”

The Arizona Senators, Jon Kyl and John McCain, are themselves an endless topic of mirth. Their antics have ranged from the utterly idiotic to the overwhelmingly hypocritical. McCain in particular has been an endless source of amusement, especially when he teamed up with Palin for the John and Palin show. In addition to not knowing how many houses he owns he has distinguished himself by flip-flopping on virtually every issue he has ever encountered. Boasting he has never proclaimed himself a “maverick,” he somehow maintains this posture in spite of his often repeated claim of such status, and the title of a book he once published. He has single-handedly raised hypocrisy to a level never before obtained by a public servant (or anyone else, for that matter). And of course we are forever in his debt for introducing us to Silly Sarah, the least qualified V.P. candidate in the history of the U.S., who has gone on to parlay McCain’s lack of judgment into a fortune. My friend and I have traded stories of our respective politics for quite some time. It has been both great fun and also very depressing. When he informed me that some people he met in Arizona wanted him to go with them to fire machine guns, “for relaxation,” I knew we were operating in parallel universes. And we do share many things in common: the conviction that Obama is going to take away all our guns, he is going to stop us from fishing, he is a socialist/communist/fascist/Muslim/Kenyan/anti-Christ from outer space who is going to kill us all with death squads, foolish lawsuits about health care, stuff like that.

Idaho has long prided itself on being the reddest of the red states and has good reason to claim such fame. But Arizona has never been far behind. They have now, however, surged far ahead of Idaho in outright idiocy. Not only have they recently passed a law making it legal to carry concealed weapons without a permit, they are in the process of passing one that will force all future Presidential Candidates to produce for them a birth certificate, an idea so intrinsically idiotic it makes one wonder if any of them has graduated from kindergarten. You also have to wonder what they will do when the next Presidential candidates refuse, “war,” perhaps? The worst, however, is a pending bill that makes the Third Reich look pretty reasonable. Arizona Police will be required to demand “papers” from anyone they deem suspicious. It is well known who the suspicious people are going to be. The implications of this bill, if it is not vetoed by their Governor, are simply immense. It will involve taxes, police protection, morality and the church, endless lawsuits, to say nothing of usurping the Federal Government’s responsibility for immigration. It will certainly be a source of amusement for morbid spectators such as my friend and myself. It is this recent spate of activity in Arizona that has made me concede. Even Idaho cannot approach this in its sheer insanity. I had to admit, Arizona wins hands down when it comes to the utter nonsense of Republicanism. I do not despair completely, however, the last cards may not have been played, Idaho may come up with something equally or more ridiculous. Walt Minnick, our so-called Democratic Representative, who is really a Republican in Democratic clothing, has recently been endorsed by the Tea Party. I don’t know what this means, but I’m pretty certain it is going to be most amusing before it plays out. To get an endorsement from the Tea Party I’m sure you have to be pretty weird. I wonder what they know about Minnick that the rest of us don’t?

Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do. Witness the Republican running against Harry Reid in Nevada, Sue Lowden, who makes Michelle Bachmann appear almost sane. There is something about the Republican Party that seems to have an attraction for really dumb blonds.

LKBIQ:
In politics, absurdity is not a handicap.
Napoleon Bonaparte

TILT:
There is absolutely no way eggplant can be cooked to make me like it.

Explanations of sorts

“Meatball” wins most beautiful
bulldog crown at 31st annual
beautiful bulldog contest in Des Moines.

Some 73% of Americans, it is claimed in some poll or other, do not trust the U.S. Government. I am one of them. Of course I trust the Post Office to deliver my mail. And I trust that my Social Security check will arrive every month. And I like Medicare, and I think the Veterans Health Care program runs pretty well, I think universal elementary schools are a good idea, I really like the Interstate Highway system, Libraries, and I sort of appreciate some control over communicable diseases, as well as protection from enemies, both local and foreign. But other than that I guess I don’t really trust the government. I’ve been giving some thought to this lately and I have concluded that as the government can’t be trusted I had better come up with my own explanations for why things are not going well.

Let’s start with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It seems there has been quite a lot of this activity lately. I think this must be the result of sucking too much out of the earth, oil, water, minerals, coal, and etc. That is, because of all this extraction, the interior of the earth must be shrinking, sort of like an orange that has had the juice sucked out of it, and the result is earthquakes and such. I really can’t think of any other explanation that makes sense to me.

We also have this problem with Iran that seems to be somewhat intractable. What I think people fail to realize is just how appreciative the Iranians really were when our CIA overthrew their democratically elected government and installed the Shah. It was not well understood at the time that the psychological defense mechanism known as “identification with the aggressor” was in play, and although they chafed under the Shah, they really identified with us. Of course the Shah has been gone for quite a while now so they have become unhappy. The idea is, I guess, that if we bomb them, especially with nuclear bombs, they will identify with us once again. Iranians cannot be trusted to act like ordinary human beings, that is why they may or may not be trying to develop a nuclear bomb and we are not to believe anything they say or do.

Another item of interest has to do with the Constitution. Silly Sarah has now made it clear that our founding fathers really did not believe in the separation of church and state, even though it may appear they did. This is because of a well-known anthropological dictum that says just because something wasn’t reported doesn’t mean it might not have existed. You know, if you are an anthropologist, and if you travel to some weird culture, and if you come back and don’t report they saved children’s feces, that doesn’t mean they didn’t do that, it just means you failed to report it. So it is with the Constitution. We should thank Sarah for this correction to our thinking about it.

Then there is the problem of rampant sex in Washington, D.C. There has been a genuine spate of adulterous incidents, homosexuality, and so on. This is, I think, a direct result of the Bill Clinton effect. You see, before Clinton no member of Congress ever had sex in their office before, especially oral sex, and his successful venture along these lines obviously inspired others to “do their own thing” which they have been doing (a lot) ever since.

And so it is with taxes. A lot of people are really upset about taxes, and, I guess, rightly so. As you may not know, taxes were invented in Kenya, and when Obama was born and raised there he liked them so well he vowed that when he became President of the U.S. he would introduce them here. Before Obama we didn’t have taxes and everyone was happy.

Many of our current troubles can be traced back to Saint Ronnie, who made us aware, for the first time, that “Government was the problem.” Before Reagan everyone loved the government and no one ever complained about it until he placed this seed of doubt in our minds. So now, as a result of his legacy, his Republican party has decided that whatever government wants to do they should oppose it. This rule only applies when democrats are in the majority because they are the ones that have always been in favor of government (you know, like the post office, social security, bad stuff like that).

Guns have become an issue, too. It is well known that Obama intends to take away everyone’s guns. The fact that he has made no moves in this direction just proves that he is going to do it someday. He is just laying low and lulling everyone into believing he is not going after their guns. You have noticed, I hope, that the census does not require you to list your guns, or even to report you have one, pretty sneaky that.

LKBIQ:
Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
Richard M. Nixon

TILT:
There is now some talk of perhaps placing wolverines on the endangered species list.

The Gambler - book

The Gambler, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Dover Publications, N.Y., 1996 {first published 1866})

I could not find a recently published book in our small library here in Bonners Ferry, and I have not had occasion to visit the North Idaho College library in Coeur d’ Alene for some time. A visit to our local book store was not much help either (they feature mostly used books). Being an avid reader I was getting desperate until I happened to notice an inexpensive Dover Thrift Edition of Dostoyevsky’s novella, The Gambler. As it has been at least fifty years since I last read Dostoyevsky, and as I had never read The Gambler, I thought I would try it.

This is an interesting tale, partly because it was apparently written during an interlude while he was writing Crime and Punishment (his greatest work), and partly because he hired a young stenographer at this time who became his second wife.

I always found Dostoyevsky somewhat hard reading even when he was being featured in Literature classes when I was in college. Reading him now after all these years did not seem to make it any easier, maybe even harder. After fifty years of reading mostly American and English prose that, while it does vary, also seems in general to be terse, sparse, tight, and economical when compared with Dostoyevsky and the other classic Russians who, to my mind are wordy, complicated, difficult to follow, and seem to revel in multiple names and a multitude of characters, while at the same time remaining fascinating.

The Gambler is no exception. It is wordy and consists overwhelmingly of conversation, characters, and psychology. There is virtually no description of scenes, countryside, surroundings, or Russian culture in general. Whereas Balzac wanted to record “the manners and customs of his time,” Dostoyevsky tells you virtually nothing of such things. It is true that inevitably you can infer some of the customs, and even some of the manners, but that is a task for you, the reader, rather than the author. Dostoyevsky is after the psychology of his characters, and you learn about them through their speech and opinions rather than their costumes or physical features. A few of them are drawn more completely than others, Aunt Antonida, for example, comes across as a truly dominating old woman who does what she wishes, but the primary love interest and sort of heroine, Polina, is more difficult to fathom.

Because of the title this book is generally considered to be about compulsive gambling, and it is, but it is also much more than that. It is a story of unrequited love, passion, interpersonal relations, greed, and Dostoyevsky’s different and revealing views of Poles, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans and Russians. It is also a story of money and what people will do for it. I think it helps if you already have some idea of the relations between France and Russia during this period of time.

Dostoyevsky was himself for a time a compulsive gambler. It almost destroyed his life. Thus he was in a good position to describe the compulsion to gamble and does it quite convincingly. The gambling scenes, however, occur towards the end of the book and serve as a kind of climax to the problems that are played out previously between the family members and their friends, some of which make you wonder if people at that time could really have behaved as they did. There is, for example, no explanation for why the main character, Alexey, follows Blanche to Paris and allows her to completely waste his enormous winnings on her every desire. His unrequited love for Polina is also difficult to understand as anything other than that, and I think the ending is not entirely convincing on this score.

I confess that in spite of the wordiness and seemingly endless conversation, and in spite of the complex Dostoyevsky psychological style, once you become immersed in this story it is compelling and you will want to finish it. It is not quite as dark as most of Dostoyevsky (think Crime and Punishment in particular), but it is not a happy or humorous tale by any stretch of imagination.

Reading The Gambler has made me want to return to Crime and Punishment, but I doubt I will have the energy. Besides, the garden is not only beckoning, but demanding. I will not be reading as much as usual until later, when the season ends, and the harvest is in the cellar and freezer, the weather turns cold, and it is time to sit by the fire and read once again.

Why Bother?

Forida woman robs
discount store, leaves her
two-year old behind.

I don’t know for sure but I suspect it’s my age. I find myself not doing things I used to do, and doing things I didn’t used to do. For example, I used to watch the news pretty faithfully, but now I find myself just turning it off. It seems to me there is no real news anymore, everything is just basically propaganda. I hear constantly how it is that Iran is an “existential threat” to Israel and the U.S. I’m a loyal American, I would like to believe this, but I just don’t. This is not because I am privy to some information others do not have, or because I am anti-Semitic, or because I love Iran, it’s just that I cannot believe it. The fact is, just based on what I hear now and then on what passes for news these days, I believe that Israel and the U.S. is a far greater existential threat to Iran than vice versa. We are doing everything we can to impose harsh sanctions on them, and we (and Israel) constantly threaten to bomb them (nothing is off the table), and we constantly accuse them of being the greatest terrorist nation on earth (what evidence there is for this is never specified in any way). Iran, on the other hand, has not attacked anyone for over 200 years, they say they do not even want nuclear bombs, and there is no clear evidence they are actually striving to produce one. And even if they had such a bomb, being intelligent people, they would hardly run out and attack nations with overwhelming military and nuclear superiority. These constant threats against Iran are not because they constitute an existential threat to anyone, they are because Iran as a nation is seeking to look after their national interests, and those national interests happen to be contrary to the national interests of others, specifically Israel, the U.S. and the Arab countries. Iran threatens Israeli/U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. Iran is a Shiite country, the Arab states are Sunni, they do not want Iran to covet Iraq and help it to become a Shiite country. The U.S. would like to dominate the Middle East and Iran is a potential problem in that they wish to be an important player in what is, in fact, their backyard, not ours. So they are a geopolitical threat. That is hardly the same as being an existential threat. So why can’t anyone just tell the truth about this? I guess for the same reason we were never told the truth about why we unilaterally and illegally attacked Iraq. I am loathe to admit the vile bumper sticker I saw even before we actually attacked was closer to the truth than anything we were told: “Nuke their ass and steal their gas.”

I am also beginning to have second thoughts about certain things. For example, I believe that Republicans lie regularly just because that is their nature. I believe this because for the past nine or ten years they have done nothing but lie about everything (can you think of anything Bush/Cheney didn’t lie about). A sliver of doubt has come into my mind so that I suspect now that sometimes they aren’t really lying, they just don’t know what they are talking about, being either ignorant or stupid. Some of the tea party folks are out there railing non-stop against taxes, apparently oblivious to the fact that Obama just reduced taxes for 95% of Americans. I suspect that before they are done they will believe that Obama actually invented taxes and before him there were no taxes. If Silly Sarah told them this they would no doubt believe it.

There was a local example of this recently. Three or four of our community leaders, who supposedly run things around here, were overheard saying how they all agreed they did not want any more “Wilderness” here in our county. They were quite adamant about this. Of course if the Federal Government designated Wilderness here there is nothing much they could do about it. But what makes this more pathetic is that there is no “Wilderness” designated in our county, none, and these presumably wise and powerful leaders had no idea what they were talking about. Observing what goes on in our Congress, where it is obvious most of them don’t even bother to read the bills they vote on, makes me believe this is true there more often than not. They simply don’t know what they are talking about, and even if they did, they would still no doubt lie about it. So I question myself, why should I even bother reading or listening to what is supposed to be “news?” It does seem completely pointless. But then I wonder, is it just me, am I slipping, do I just don’t “get it?” And then I shrug and tell myself “that’s just human nature,” but if that’s true, is anything really worth bothering about? I am reminded of my favorite New Yorker cartoon: An obviously well-off middle-aged man is standing in his living room looking downcast. His wife says, “Well, whatever possessed you to buy a book called ‘Being and Nothingness” in the first place?

The Crystal Gazer

I shall gather myself into my self again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one.
I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.
I Shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent.
Watching the future come and the present go
- And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In tiny self-importance to and fro.
- Sara Teasdale

The Spring House

I am so fed up with "wars," tea parties, bickering, idiocy, Silly Sarah, lies, hypocrisy, Wall Street, Main Street, mines, McCain, Republicans, murders, misery, infotainment, and the so-called "news" I just can't deal with it tonight. So here is a short story I've been working on. Perhaps it will become part of my prospective volume: Encounters: the Unfinished, Unread, Uncollected, Unpublished, and Unwanted Short Stories of Morialekafa. For others see Morialekafa 7-25-09.

The Spring House

“What is that thing?” The potential buyer emphasized “that” and only less so, “thing,” in a demanding voice, as he pointed to a stone structure some fifty yards from the house.

“I’ll explain it later,” the agent said, “first let me show you the rest of the property. I think it may be exactly what you’re looking for.” He led the couple away from the house and toward the hillside. “I’ll show you the spring first.” As they walked through the dry orchard grass and between a few withered fruit trees, he continued. “As I told you, it’s twenty acres, mostly flat and usable… used to be forty, but they had to sell twenty when everything went bad for a while a few years back. They continued in silence until they arrived at the spring.

“It’s beautiful,” the buyer’s wife gasped, “absolutely beautiful, I love it.” The spring water emerged from under a huge granite boulder situated between two similar but smaller boulders. The pond was about ten by twenty feet in diameter and three or four feet in depth. It had been enhanced by a rock retaining wall of large carefully cut and shaped stones placed brick-like along the lower side, so weathered they appeared to be part of the original spring. It had been an obvious labor of love. Green moss covered parts of the rock and skippers moved gracefully across the surface. A single huge wild rose bush bent over one side, a few pink and white petals having fallen on the water, enhanced the charm of the quiet place.

“The water runs through a pipe down to the house,” the agent explained. “It’s really wonderful water.”

“It’s great,” the buyer exclaimed.

“The property line is right there behind the spring. All that land from there up the hill belongs to the state. You’d never have to worry about neighbors.” The hill rose gradually from from the spring, broken up with outcroppings of granite and sparsely covered with scrub pines and juniper.

As they walked back toward the house they passed two rows of old firewood, stacked in cords, covered heavily with pine needles and home to a family of squirrels. As they passed, a slender brown weasel emerged from the stack with a mouse in its mouth.

“This was the garden,” the agent explained, as they walked across a large area now heavy in weeds.

“Look, honey,” the buyer said, “We can have a great garden, grow our own food, it’ll be wonderful.” She looked at him with surprise but said nothing. As far as she knew he had never gardened.

“You said you were looking for a place for a Bed and Breakfast,” the agent reminded him, “This ought to be a perfect place. Of course it would take a lot of remodeling and modernization, but it’s got everything. It’s not right on a main highway, but the freeway is only about a mile away. It’s twenty acres with its own water, pasture, a great old barn. Before I show you the house let me show you this wonderful old barn.” He led them past the large two story house, towards the barn.

It was a great barn, huge, with a dozen stanchions for milking cows, a hayloft above, a couple of box stalls for horses, and off in one corner stood an old one-horse carriage covered with dust. It was unusually clean for a barn and smelled pleasurably of hay.

“My god, it’s wonderful,” the buyer exclaimed excitedly. “It’s perfect, couldn’t be better. Look honey, we can have a few horses for our guests to ride, maybe even a cow.” She looked at him with wry smile, after twenty-five years of marriage his enthusiasms no longer surprised her.

“Just look at this barn,” the agent ordered. “It’s just as sound now as the day it was built. Those old Norwegians really knew how to build things. The house is the same, you’ll see.”

As they passed within sight of the strange round stone building the buyer asked once more, “What is that thing?” The emphasis now was on the “is.” Once again the agent ignored the question and led them to the house.

After unlocking what was apparently the back door with a strange old key, the agent led them through a screened-in porch and ushered them into a large old-fashioned kitchen with massive beams overhead.

“They don’t build ‘em like this anymore,” he exclaimed proudly. “Just look at that construction.” It was true, the house, like the barn, although probably more than a hundred years old, was so solidly built it didn’t seem to have either sagged or shifted.

“It’s still furnished!” The wife blurted out in surprise.

“Yeah, much of the original furniture is still here,” the agent explained. “Apparently the owners left in a hurry and for some reason never came back for it.”

“That’s weird,” the buyer observed, “really weird.”

It was a marvelous old farmhouse. From the kitchen they entered an equally large family room. There was a heavy oak dining table surrounded by six matching chairs. On one side was a large sofa in front of a window that looked out on the grounds, with the picturesque barn in the background. On the opposite wall stood an old, elaborately carved, piano. Sheet music for “The Pagan Love Song” was still in place. It was a comfortable, inviting room, that showed evidence of having been much lived in. “It’s just lovely,” the wife observed.

“Now look at this,” the agent implored, “you don’t see these anymore.” They entered a parlor room. Aside from the dust and cobwebs, it appeared to have never been used. The antique furniture was covered with what appeared to be bed sheets. “Most of the old houses like this used to have parlor rooms,” he explained. “They were only used on rare occasions when they had special guests. Seems like a terrible waste, but that’s the way they did it back then.”

Also on the main floor was a bedroom entered from the family room. It was not large but comfortable- looking with a window that looked out toward the spring.

“Was this the master bedroom?” The buyer was obviously disappointed by the size.

“They didn’t have master bedrooms when this old place was built, but there are four other bedrooms upstairs that are all about the same size. Of course none of them have bathrooms. Indoor plumbing, for whatever reason, didn’t quite make it into this house. That’s one of the main drawbacks to this place, you’d have to put in plumbing and bathrooms. There’s enough space but it would be expensive. The closets aren’t very big. Of course you probably noticed there’s no hot water in the kitchen either, but that wouldn’t be so hard to remedy. Obviously an old place like this is going to need some real overhauling, but think how great it’ll be when it’s done.”

“Yeah, it’s a great old place,” the buyer agreed, “I love it. Look, honey, we could have the downstairs bedroom and use the upstairs for guests. The family room is perfect for breakfasts and we could use the parlor room for TV and recreation. It’ll be perfect. We’d have to find a decent architect but I’m sure it could be done.

His wife smiled and agreed, but noncommittally, “yes, it really is a great old place.”

Finally they had to confront the strange stone house that was located no more than 20 yards from the back door. “What the hell,” the buyer exclaimed, “there’s no door, or even a window. What was this thing anyway?”

“I don’t know why there is no door. There was a door at one time. Look, you can see where the stones were set into the opening. There was a window too, there, you can see where it was.” The agent pointed to what must have been a small window.

“But it doesn’t make sense,” the buyer insisted, “Why would anyone have closed the place up like this. I don’t get it.”

The agent was silent for a while, considering how to explain what might have happened, but not too eager to do so. As offering no explanation was not a reasonable option, he finally spoke. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know what happened. There are different stories about it. I don’t know if any of them are true.”

“What stories,” the wife demanded, “What are the stories? You must tell us.”

The agent looked down at his feet and shuffled about nervously as he began. “This was the spring house. Remember, there was no electricity or refrigeration when the place was built. Water from the spring ran down here into this stone house where it kept things cool. There was a stone pool about two feet deep where they kept the milk and cream in those old milk cans. Not too long ago all these small farmers had dairy cows, they’d milk them twice a day and sell the milk. There was a little train that ran by here every day, actually twice a day, they called it the ‘Dinky,” because it was so small. It picked up the milk and took it to town where it was processed. The train track is still there but they don’t use it anymore.” He pointed to a spot about four hundred yards away. “The farmers took their milk there almost every day.”

“But why did they close the place? Even if they didn’t use it anymore, why close it? We have to know,” the wife said firmly.

“Well, there’s at least three different stories,” the agent reported. “I don’t know if any of them are true, but the most popular one has to do with a little girl. The couple that lived here had no children of their own. The woman was a school teacher and it was rumored she didn’t even like children. But anyway, apparently one day her relatives came to visit. They had a little girl. She was said to be about 3 or 4 years old and pretty as a picture, a little blond girl. The story is that somehow she fell into the pool in the spring house and drowned. The owners and the parents were so ashamed and so distraught they sealed the place up and left and never returned. I don’t know for sure if that’s what happened, but it’s true they never returned and no one seems to know what happened to them.”

My god, how awful it must have been. But what happened to them? Where did they go?” The wife, horrified by the tale, was visibly upset and kept staring at the spring house.

“It was in the summer,” the agent explained, “They just up and left, no one knows what happened to them. No one around here heard from them again.”

The husband, now intrigued, spoke up. “You said there were other stories. What are the others”?

The agent paused before continuing, “Of course these are nothing but rumors, you understand. No one knows what really happened. One of the stories is that the husband, who was said to be abusive, killed his wife in a fit of anger, sealed her in the spring house and left. That’s why he never returned, because he murdered his wife. The other story is the same although in reverse. Some people think she killed him when he began to abuse her, or maybe for some other reason entirely, and had his body sealed in the spring house. There was an old guy used to live just down the road a ways, an Irishman, claimed that he sealed it up for her. But he was a drinker, always drunk, and no one believed him. In any case she, too, disappeared, and no one knows where she went. If either of these two stories is true it would explain why the murderer never came back. But maybe the first story is true and they actually meant to come back but somehow never did. Anyway, no one really knows what happened. It’s all just talk.”

“Why didn’t someone open the spring house and find out what happened? Weren’t the police or anyone interested?” The buyer found the situation impossible to believe, his wife agreed, “yes, why?”

“A good question,” the agent acknowledged. “I don’t know the answer, except this has always been a rural area where people live on their farms and mind their own business. There’s only the Sheriff, but he’s busy and doesn’t go around poking into rumors. Lots of funny things happened around here. People died and their families buried them and nobody was ever the wiser, especially if it was a child that died. I guess they weren’t very close to any of the neighbors so no one raised a fuss about it. If it happened nowadays it probably might be different. But that’s the way it was.”

“If we bought the place we’d have to do something about it,” the buyer said. “But what could we do?”

“I suppose you could get a stonemason to open the doorway, don’t know what you might find. If there’s a body I suppose you could just bury it. Probably the easiest thing would be to just get a dozer in here and bulldoze the whole thing away. You don’t need it for anything anyway.”

“You couldn’t do that,” the wife gasped, “if there’s a body in here that would be a terrible thing to do.”

“She’s right,” the buyer agreed. “I guess we’d have to find out first if there is a body. That wouldn’t be a hard thing to do. If there is one we could just have it buried someplace, maybe back there on the hillside somewhere.” In his mind it was already done. He could see the tiny grave somewhere behind the spring with a tasteful small tombstone, and he was already rehearsing how he would tell his clients the story of the restored spring house. In his mind the bathrooms were already installed, the kitchen remodeled with new granite counters, a state-of-the-art range and walk-in refrigerator, the breakfast menus of shirred farm-fresh eggs and puff pancakes, fresh fruits and vegetables were already becoming world famous.

As the buyer was lost in his imagination, and pondering the problems and challenges of his exciting new life, he did not perceive the eye contact between his wife and the agent, nor did he notice the almost imperceptible but meaningful negative shake of her head.

“What a nice lady,” the agent thought as he drove away, “A nice looker, too.”

Slow Learners

Texas man arrested for
stuffing bass with lead
in attempt to win contest.

It strikes me as amusing (but also kind of sad) to watch many of our so-called leaders come across as such slow learners. In the past few years I have seen over and over again their attempts to deny they said or did something only to be shown on video or caught on audiotape that they did, in fact, say or do precisely that which they are denying. One latest example comes from Mike Huckabee, potential candidate for President. In an interview with a student reporter Huckabee made comments comparing gay marriage to bestiality and incest and suggested gays should not be allowed to adopt children because children are not “puppies.” When the student’s interview was reported in the student paper it generated considerable interest because of these remarks. Huckabee then attempted to blame the student for misrepresenting what he said and challenged him to present the entire interview. So the student did so, demonstrating that he had reported accurately precisely what Huckabee had said. Bill O’Reilly is another recent case in point. He insisted that no one had ever said someone could be put in prison for not having health insurance. I can’t remember if it was Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert, but one of them immediately showed not only one but several instances in which this had occurred on O’Reilly’s show. I find it hard to believe that Huckabee and O’Reilly are unaware of not so modern anymore technology like audio and videotape that will prove them wrong.

If these were isolated incidences of this it would be one thing, but they are not. Indeed, Stewart, Colbert, and Maddow are virtually making careers out of proving people to be liars and hypocrites by demonstrating repeatedly that you cannot get away with hypocrisy and lies like politicians did routinely in the past. There is now an organization called PolitiFact that exists for the sole purpose of fact checking statements made by politicians and others on some shows. As this now happens with such frequency it makes you wonder why they continue to lie so commonly. I suspect it may be simply that politicians cannot function without lying when they are confronted with questions they do not want to answer, or cannot answer. Not wanting to look stupid or be embarrassed they make something up and end up appearing even more stupid and hypocritical. Of course it could be the case that if all of them had to tell the truth all the time there would be chaos. I suppose they sometimes know that if they answer truthfully they might not get elected, so they just lie and hope no one will be the wiser and there will be few, if any, consequences. Have we finally stumbled into a situation where politicians and others will be forced to always tell the truth? I doubt it, because the truth hurts, and politicians above all others cannot risk hurting anyone with a vote. I suppose it is also the case they believe their supporters will support them whether the lie or not, and those who don’t support them won’t matter. I guess it is unlikely that our political system can work without a generous supply of prevarication and hypocrisy. Sad, I think, but true.

More importantly, and even more sadly, there are some slow learners who are even worse. John McCain is a good case in point. He has now urged that we take action (“pull the trigger”) on Iran. He was, you may recall, in favor of the “war” against Iraq. This was a completely unnecessary “war” that has cost the lives of somewhere around a million people, mostly innocents, has forced some 4 million to give up their homes and become refugees, has involved torture and the use of illegal weapons of various kinds, blatant war profiteering, and has brought about absolutely untold misery for millions of people. Apparently McCain has learned nothing from this and is urging that we attack still another country for no reason other than he thinks we should (and of course the Israelis want us to). The latest I heard is that Iran is at least one year away from even being able to process weapons quality uranium, and is at least five years away from being able to produce a bomb (and which has not been actually proven they even want to do so). But McCain wants to attack them anyway. In addition to being apparently a slow learner I think he is also insane, along with his other right-wing warmongers. Not only would attacking Iran be a stupid idea, it would almost surely bring about consequences far worse than our unnecessary attack on Iraq. His buddy, Joe Lieberman, is every bit as bad if not worse. How these people can even contemplate an act so awesomely awful, given our recent experiences in losing “wars” is entirely beyond my comprehension. I am beginning to wonder if they have any human qualities whatsoever.

LKBIQ:
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
Sir Winston Churchill

TILT:
There is little or no agreement on whether or not you should wash a llama.

Sedition

Drunken Tennessee man
riding lawnmower on road
arrested for stealing fishing poles.

I don’t really know but I am sure there are laws against sedition. I know there are laws against treason, but that is not quite the same thing. I don’t quite know what one might call what a potential Governor of Oklahoma wants to do, namely, sponsor a state-sanctioned militia for the purpose of defending Oklahoma from the Federal Government, but this is surely seditious. I guess this is somewhere in the same ballpark as the Texas Governor talking about seceding from the Union, only worse. Personally, I think we should encourage Texas and Oklahoma to secede and form independent countries (they could take other southern states along). It would at the very least be amusing for a while. As they drain more money from the Federal Government than other states it would make it less expensive for the rest of us. And given the nature of their elected leadership in general they probably wouldn’t last more than a few months before they’d be begging to reincorporate. Of course, if they feel strongly enough about how bad our Federal Government is they might be able to become part of Mexico (although as Mexico has just refused to accept American beef because of its contamination perhaps they might not want them). I wonder if these morons have any idea how impossible it would be for them to secede and become independent countries? But I’m all for it, I’d love to see them try it. Until they do I regard their blather as just that, blather. I wonder what it is other than anti-lynch laws they are concerned about, maybe health care, teaching evolution, abortion, and taxes? I bet they’d go a long way without taxes. I guess this talk in Virginia about celebrating their Confederate heritage is part of the same discontent. We should call their bluff and force them to secede. It would be hilarious.

Speaking of taxes, I finally mailed my off today and what a relief it is. Or, at least it was, before I read an article pointing out that 53% of my taxes go to the military. Now if that is not fiscal insanity I don’t know what is. This is enough to make me want to join a Tea Party. Except, curiously enough, these people who are so upset about taxes, and who march around with signs about “no taxes” and all, never seem t o carry any anti-war signs or rail against this incredible waste of money. Why this is so would be an interesting question to pursue. It quite likely has to do with having a mercenary voluntary military and other mercenary participants as well, so that most people aren’t really affected by it, and also because we have now become basically a militaristic culture with an ethos to match. Maybe there are anti-war signs but if so I have not seen them.

Ah, it seems that Silly Sarah is not so silly after all, depending upon how you look at things. Since quitting in the middle of her term as Governor of Alaska, nine months ago, she has apparently pulled in 12 million dollars in royalties, speaking fees, and whatever. I think this is quite a remarkable achievement for a woman who is barely above the status of nitwit. It just proves that to impress the American public you really don’t have to know anything except public speaking. Every time I accidentally hear or see her I am reminded of a line out of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, “Oh, the horror!”

“Procrastination is the thief of time.” You have no doubt heard this before. In our world of MSM it should be “Speculation is the thief of time.” As is repeatedly and predictably the case, the resignation of Justice Stevens has set off a storm of speculation as to who might replace him. No one knows, of course, as Obama has not yet nominated anyone, but you can be sure we will have nothing but days, perhaps even weeks, maybe months of speculation about it. Indeed, without speculation News 24/7 would cease to exist (as they might actually have to spend money on reporters, travel, investigations, news, and such, instead of just constant and confusing speculation). Speculation is nowadays an integral part of news infotainment, it’s cheap, keeps everyone’s mind of just how bad everything is, and it doesn’t seem to affect advertising revenue. The same thing happens whenever someone is about to be appointed to some important position, especially if there is some chance of a filibuster, and it also happens routinely with missing persons, crimes, terrorism, and what have you. For all intents and purposes it has replaced news.

It appears that we kill more innocent Afghans every day. It is said they are becoming more and more anti-American. How strange. Will we never come to our senses and get out of there?

LKBIQ:
Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
Ambrose Bierce

TILT:
The carambola is closely related to the bilimbi.

On Sex Addiction

During reconciliation talks
she slashes and stabs him
with two butcher knives.

Allow me to express my more than merely mild skepticism over the concept of sex addiction. While it might not be a true oxymoron I think it’s lingering nearby. This is not meant to be specifically about Tiger Woods, but has been brought to my attention by his particular case. I do not believe sex addiction is included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, nor do I recall hearing any mention of it until recently (don’t bet that it won’t eventually appear in the Manual). Tiger Woods has said he has been in therapy for his sexual addiction. I gather that Jesse James (the husband of actress so-and-so) has also now claimed a similar attempt. And there are some psychiatrists and others who insist there really is such a thing as sex addiction (but there are others who do not agree).

I have been struggling to try to understand just what an addiction to sex might entail. First, I think this is playing rather fast and loose with the term “addict.” Most commonly, I believe an addiction is something that you cannot stop and it usually has unpleasant consequences when one attempts to stop, withdrawal symptoms of various kinds. I have not heard anyone claim there are physiological effects from not having sex (perhaps that is yet to come). The only other meaning of addiction has to do with an extremely broad-based claim that people can be psychologically addicted as well as physiologically addicted. That is, it is possible with the psychological explanation that people can be addicted to gambling, coca-cola, chewing gum, pornography, stealing shoes, fetishing feet, coffee, and perhaps even bagels.

Assuming there are such things as psychological addictions, it would seem to me there are far too many possibilities that might exist. Some married women, for example, might believe their husbands are sex addicts because of their too frequent demands for sex. Can you be a sex addict if you are only addicted to sex with your wife? It would seem in Tiger’s case it must have had something to do with having sex with lots of different women. But since when has that been an addiction? Besides, it is hard to see as an addiction, the seeking out a different woman every night. That just doesn’t make much sense. I suppose one could also be addicted to masturbation and masturbatory fantasies, or interested in sex to the point of thinking of little else. Some ordinary teenagers and young men might well fit this profile of sex addiction. And of course there is pornography. No doubt there are men who spend a great deal of time watching, even collecting, pornography. I guess it could be said they are addicted to it. Then there are those individuals who seem to be addicted to having sex with boys or young girls. As these types seem unable to control these perverse desires it might be possible to ascribe their behavior as some form of addiction. I suppose it might be possible to argue that someone might be addicted to voyeurism or even to exposing himself. Finally, there are some rare perversions so bizarre that you might conclude the practitioners must be addicted to them or they wouldn’t or couldn’t participate in them at all.

While I am having trouble with the concept of sex addiction itself, I am even more at sea when it comes to trying to think about therapy for sex addicts. As there are not as yet any pills for sex addiction (at least not that I am aware of, and they may well be forthcoming), what forms of therapy are available? Of course there is the old tried and true method employed by some married women who just insist a cold shower will do the trick. I suppose in some cases classical psychoanalytic techniques might be employed. That is, talking to a psychiatrist and trying to trace your problem back to some infantile or youthful trauma, or some problem with your parents, and so on. Maybe after many years of this kind of therapy there might emerge that insightful breakthrough that will explain it all and you will thereby be “cured.” Only the very rich can afford this treatment, so what else might be available? Perhaps sex addicts can be slowly weaned from their behavior in one way or another. Say, for example, if someone is addicted to pornographic videos, could you slowly get them, when they have an overwhelming desire to watch a pornographic film, to watch a Disney movie instead, perhaps something like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or The Little Mermaid? Using this method slowly over time you presumably might lead them away from their problem and into a much healthier life style. Various kinds of aversion therapy are no doubt available. That is, you could have them watch people having sex and then dump a vat of hot water on them. Or, perhaps better yet, you could place some electrodes on their buttocks and just when they were about to attain maximum pleasure you could deliver a really powerful electric shock. Maybe group therapy would work, like Alcoholics Anonymous. You could have Sex Addicts Anonymous whereby they could weekly review their behavior, discuss how they got there, pray, and swear they won’t do it again. No doubt there are other techniques I am unaware of, and that might or might not work. In the case of Tiger Woods, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that his therapy consisted of hitting another 500 golf balls and playing another 18 holes, whenever he felt that overwhelming urge coming on. Am I cynical or what?

I do not doubt that some people are more interested in sex than others, and no doubt pursue it more intensely than others. And I am also aware there are nymphomaniacs. It could be argued, I think, that such people are not so much interested in sex as they are in pleasure. This poses for me a bit of a problem in that when I think of addiction I tend to think of something unpleasant, something one would rather not have. But if seeking pleasure is an addiction this puts addiction in an entirely different perspective. I suspect that most people seek pleasure, so what distinguishes one pleasure seeker as an addict and another as just a normal person? I guess maybe it has to do with quantity.

Unfortunately, one person’s pleasure can be the source of considerable pain to others. I hope the medical profession will think carefully before adding sex addiction to the Manual, but as there is money to be made here, don’t bet on it.

The more I think about it, being somewhat old-fashioned, I think I might prefer the excuse, “The Devil made me do it.” I bet a real authentic exorcism would cure sex addiction in a hurry, and save a lot of money to boot.

LKBIQ:
Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.
W. Somerset Maugham

TILT:
Rhinoceroses have highly developed senses of smell and hearing but do not see very well.

Pulitzer - book

Pulitzer A Life in Politics, Print, and Power, James McGrath Morris (Harper Collins, 2010)

For most of my life I have known of the Pulitzer Prize. However, I confess to being so ignorant and incurious that I had no idea until reading this biography just who Pulitzer was or why he gave out prizes. My ignorance and incuriosity sometimes appalls me. If you have an interest in biography, or if you have any interest in the history of our country during the period of roughly 1860 to 1915 you will find this book of enormous interest. I believe you would be hard-pressed to find a better example of biography. This one is well researched, well documented, well written, detailed, and extremely informative. I’m pretty certain it will be the definitive biography of Joseph Pulitzer for a long time. Like almost all American biography it is written in the standard chronological style, birth, youth, adulthood, marriage, achievements, death. This is, I believe, fine, if your main interest is history and the individual’s contributions to it. If you’re main interest is in the individual him or herself as a personality, it is probably more interesting to simply ask someone to tell you about their life, in which case you may not always get a chronological account. As Morris has been the editor of Biographer’s Craft it is not surprising this is such a fine example of the genre.

Joseph Pulitzer was born into a (secular) Jewish family in a small town not far from Pest. They were fairly well-off and had their own business and owned their own home. When Joseph was eight they moved to Pest (at that time adjacent to Buda) where they were even more successful. But when Joseph’s father died, leaving his mother to raise the family alone, they fell upon relatively difficult times. Joseph by then had grown to 6’ 1” seventeen year-old and decided to emigrate to America. As he had no means, he achieved this by agreeing to serve in the Union Army (by then, with 13,000 soldiers a day being killed the Union was recruiting in Europe and paying a bonus for those who agreed to serve). Joseph lied about his age and served for a time but managed to escape frontline duty. Upon his discharge he eventually arrived in St. Louis, working at whatever jobs he could find and haunting the library to teach himself English. Eventually he became a reporter for a German newspaper, the Westliche Post, and quickly established himself as an unusually bright and hard working reporter. More importantly, he became deeply involved in Missouri and national politics. Eventually, as his English improved and he had sufficient experience, backers and friends, he managed to buy a share in the Post. As the three owners did not get along the other two bought Pulitzer out, giving him a substantial profit. He later bought a failing German newspaper and, through a clever scheme managed to sell it at a profit. He then gambled $20,000 in a friend’s project that also brought him a significant profit.

Pulitzer’s next move was to buy a failing paper, the Evening Dispatch, which he quickly merged with another evening paper, gambling that he could increase their subscriptions quickly enough to pay off their debts, which he did. Pulitzer perceived something that newspapers up until that time did not, that ordinary working people, while only mildly interested in the comings and goings of the elite, would become vitally interested in news and problems that pertained more specifically to them. Pulitzer sold his papers for one cent and embarked upon a scheme to expose fraudulent companies, dishonest businesses, and publish at least one sensational article per day. He poked fun at his competitors. As Pulitzer was virtually impossible to work with it, was not long until his partner sold out and Pulitzer became the sole owner of the Post-Dispatch, a paper that made a consistent profit for the remainder of Pulitzer’s life and made him a wealthy man.
As Pulitzer was in the newspaper business not only to make money, but also to have power and political influence, and as he was called upon more and more to make important political speeches and engage in campaigning for Senators and Presidents, he became more and more famous. It was not long before St. Louis became too small for him and he lusted to own a paper in New York. The fortune he was accumulating from the Post-Dispatch eventually allowed him to take over the “World” in New York, which quickly became the most important and widely circulated paper in that key city, indeed in history. He used the same techniques in New York as he had in St. Louis, sensationalism, invasions of privacy, constant railing against corporations and defenses of labor and the working class. Nothing was too sacred for Pulitzer to attack and the more he did so the more his paper thrived. When William Randolph Hearst, who had imitated Pulitzer’s methods and techniques in San Francisco, also moved into New York, Pulitzer battled him for supremacy and eventually won out when Hearst was accused of encouraging the assassination of McKinley. Both papers had urged and supported the war with Spain over Cuba and in many ways shared the same views. When the circulation of both papers declined for a time Hearst and Pulitzer considered an illegal scheme to collaborate but when Hearst’s paper declined because of the McKinley rumor it became moot. Pulitzer’s greatest problem became Teddy Roosevelt whom he despised. The feeling was mutual and Roosevelt tried desperately (and somewhat illegally) to have Pulitzer thrown in jail for slander when he accused the Roosevelt administration of corruption in the building of the Panama Canal. This was a case Pulitzer eventually won and was also a most important case that established the absolute independence of newspapers from government retaliation.

There is so much more in this fine book. Pulitzer was a genuine case of “rags to riches,” although he was never truly in rags and the riches he attained were even beyond the imagination of most people. Ironically, although he made his fortune by attacking the wealthy and privileged, as he became unbelievably wealthy himself he basically joined their ranks and moved in high society and among the most powerful people in the world. Unfortunately, before he was fifty he became blind and a semi-recluse and invalid who could not stand even the slightest noise. He spent thousands upon thousands on rooms and buildings that would be essentially soundproof, and eventually had built a special 300 foot long yacht that was as soundproof as possible and spent much of his later life cruising and living in Europe, leaving his papers to be managed by others (but not without constant and unwelcome micromanagement). Before he died he endowed Columbia University to create the first School of Journalism and established the prizes for which he is now famous. During his last years he became more and more impossible, alienated himself from his wife and children, made impossible demands on his employees, and suffered from a host of ailments that made his life miserable. He depended entirely on a large staff to read to him and help manage his life. During the period when Rockefeller and Morgan and others were giants of industry, Pulitzer became the first giant of Newspaper publishing and virtually single-handedly converted newspapers into a mass media for the first time. William Randolph Hearst, who seems to get more publicity and fame, was a latecomer and even with access to his mother’s giant fortune, could not outdo Pulitzer. I must say I learned a great deal from this biography and I do not hesitate to recommend it.

There's Lots of Money

Man riding by on bicycle
snatches elderly woman’s
bag of dog poop.

It has often been argued that no one should have to go hungry because there is lots of food in the world. The problem has always been one of distribution. I don’t know if this is completely true or not, but I do know that it is claimed that 50% of food in the U.S. is wasted. And I also know that perfectly good crops are sometimes burned or buried in order to keep their prices high. It must certainly be true that no one in the U.S. should have to go hungry. But they do.

So it is, it seems to me, with money. We read every day about the national debt, how much we owe China and others, and so on. But as it is with food, so it is with money. There is a lot of money, lots and lots of it. The problem is in the distribution. And the distribution is importantly a problem of priorities. I don’t know the actual figures and amounts, nor am I an economist. But I’m pretty sure that if we stopped funding our unnecessary “wars” we would have a lot of money to help pay down our debts. Similarly, if we stopped providing troops and military hardware to countries like Japan, Germany, Israel, and others, we would have still more money. And, if we stopped funding military bases all around the world in an attempt to create our hidden “empire,” we would have even more money. We’d probably be drowning in money, the national debt would soon disappear, fried chicken could be free, as would Viagra and Cialis, health care and tuition could also be free, and we’d all live happily ever after in a relative paradise. This assumes, of course, that these “wars” and military bases, etc., are costing us more than we are getting in return. Does anyone know what we are getting in return from Afghanistan and Iraq? I didn’t think so. What would we gain by attacking Iran? What exactly is the purpose of all these “wars” and such. Along with our unnecessary “wars” is the related matter of the military/industrial/political complex. Why are we spending so much building planes and tanks and ships and artillery and ammunition and supplies that are for the most part not even needed? I gather we spend something like half our annual budget on our defenses, but who are we defending against? Just who is it out there that is planning to invade the U.S.? We could, I am pretty certain, cut our defense budget in half and suffer no substantial loss of security. Think of all the money we’d have then!

Of course there is still a huge pot of money available if we did not have such strange ideas about how it should be distributed. Why should a small percentage of individuals have more money than the other 90% of the population? Can anyone offer any sensible reason for this? Is there any social, moral, ethical, logical, practical, or redeeming reason why individuals should have hundreds of millions and billions of dollars? I don’t believe that everyone should have the same amount of money, or that all individuals are equally deserving of it, but, really, when the distribution is so drastically skewed as it currently is, something needs to be done about it. This would be relatively easy matter to fix, just raise the tax rate for the obscenely rich by a very large percentage. They wouldn’t even know the difference.

What I am suggesting is no doubt obvious, and it could be done, and our country and the rest of the world would be better off for it. Of course there is no chance it will be done, at least not in the foreseeable future. It would require a kind of leadership and motivation we don’t have. It would immediately be branded as socialism or even worse, communism. Never mind that the most happy and contented people live in Scandinavian countries that practice forms of social democracy, where everyone has health care, Universities are free (or mostly free), there are relatively few homeless, few, if any, hungry, and their defense budgets are entirely realistic rather than obviously insane. Our current values of “greed is good,” “privatization,” “shop ‘til you drop,” “it’s your fault if you are poor,” and “I’ve got mine,” along with our intense religious faith in the profit motive, will never allow us happiness or well-being (except for the few). We have lost any real sense of community or any basic ideas about human worth and dignity. Some are now observing that the recent mine disaster resulted from putting profits ahead of human lives. So…that has become part of our basic ethos, it happens every day in one form or another. Forty five thousand a year die from not having medical care, we can’t afford it. We just killed some innocent children, it’s their parents fault for bringing them along, you’re hungry, get a job, we just blew up another wedding party, collateral damage, land mines kill hundreds of children every year, we need them for protection (visitors from outer space), people in Gaza are being slowly destroyed, Israel is our closest friend, we reserve the right to preventative “war” (they might do something, someday, we wouldn’t like), and so it goes. It is, I fear, the American way.

LKBIQ:
Why is this thus? What is the reason for this thusness?
Artemus Ward

TILT:
Brie and Camembert are essentially the same, being made from the same “recipe.”

Point of no Return

Man drives to jail drunk
to serve two day sentence
for drunk driving.

I think we may have reached the point of no return. Forget any hope of bipartisanship, Republicans have now established themselves as living in an alternative world completely, and are being aided by our corporate owned MSM. When Silly Sarah is given time to criticize President Obama on nuclear matters you might surmise that we have passed the point of sanity entirely. When Liz Cheney is given a microphone to claim that President Obama is destroying our country because he is willing to talk with Muslims you know that reason has been abandoned. And when Newt Gingrich, the great pontificator, who some time ago established his credentials as probably the worst hypocrite that ever lived, claims Obama is a radical, you know that his brain has turned to pig pucky, and he and his supporters (if there are any) are living in an alternative world where intelligence, reason, and truth have no place. When Governor Pawlenty, with delusions of being Presidential, supports Michelle Bachmann, I suspect the line of sanity has been irrevocably breeched. When John McCain claims he never said he was a maverick…well, you know, senility comes to some earlier than others. And these are presumably all leaders of the Republican Party, I haven’t even mentioned the total insanity of Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter, and other ultra-right wingers that daily spread their hate and lies and also speak for the Republican Party. What these individuals are doing has now gone so far as to preclude any possibility of bipartisanship for the benefit of our country. The point of no return has now been passed, there is no way the two parties can ever again come together and act as a responsible government. The Republicans have so demonized Obama as a Black, foreign-born, Muslim communist anti-Christ there is no way they can now admit they are wrong. This is now truly a battle between what might rightly be described as good and evil and one side or the other simply has to go. This is no longer an argument between two competing points of view, two philosophies of government, two opponents who at least respect one another, two different ways of governing, two thoughtful positions on a few different issues, it has become obvious that one side is no longer, shall I say, entirely compos mentis.

Listening to the babble that now comes out of the mouths of Republicans reminds me of visiting an insane asylum. Their words have lost all meaningful connection with reality. I suppose you might argue they are not truly insane because they are just trying to destroy the Obama administration no matter what it attempts to do, but their means of doing it are so outrageously dishonest and divorced from the facts, they might as well be certifiably insane. I guess that Obama’s desire to extend medical care to all is pretty radical from the Republican point of view. They would obviously prefer to allow some 45,000 a year die from lack of medical care. Attempting to stimulate the economy is also radical if you prefer to see a depression to insure that cheap labor might get even cheaper. Signing a nuclear pact with Russia is petty radical if you prefer to maintain and use nuclear weapons to achieve your goals of world domination. Even pro-choice is pretty radical if you prefer people to be forced to have babies they don’t want who can then be abused, abandoned and die as children. The truth is, Republicans believe anything that attempts to help ordinary working people is radical. In a way this has always been true of Republicans, but seldom before has it reached such a level of passionate and unremitting intensity. Contemporary Republicans would apparently rather see our nation destroyed than give one penny to anyone in need or cooperate with Democrats. And they refuse to compromise, preferring to boast of being the party of “no.”

This absolute refusal to cooperate is now going to play out with respect to the replacement for Supreme Court Justice Douglas who has announced his retirement at the end of this term. Republicans like Orin Hatch and John Kyl are already threatening to filibuster Obama’s nominee, even though there is no nominee as yet. They can’t even extend Obama the courtesy of waiting until he actually nominates someone before threatening to oppose him or her. I guess if you are as bonkers as they are you might consider this an example of responsible government. Republican extremism has now forced them into a position from which they cannot escape, short of making an abject apology to the citizens of the U.S. for their totally irresponsible and uncooperative behavior up until now. As this is highly unlikely the situation will continue as it is with not even the possibility of compromise or bipartisanship. This certainly does not bode well for the immediate future of our country and possibly for a much longer time to come.

The corporate MSM bears much of the responsibility for this terrible situation. They give air time and a platform to people who ought to be ignored as irresponsible, lying, hypocritical, and dishonest. Do you remember anytime, anytime at all, when the MSM challenged the virtually pathological lying of Bush and Cheney, or Rumsfeld or Rice? All of them lied so routinely it became impossible to believe anything you heard. You could not separate the lies from the truth because there never was any truth at all.

There is now sworn testimony from Wilkerson that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld were aware that hundreds of individuals interned in Guantanamo were completely innocent but did nothing about it, an absolutely horrendous crime. Do you think Obama and Holder will do anything about it? They won’t, but how can they in good conscience not?

LKBIQ:
All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
James Thurber

TILT:
The orchid family is the largest family of flowering plants.

Unknowns

Landlord, feuding with tenant,
climbs on roof and soaks him
with a bucket of water.

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

You no doubt recognize these words of profound wisdom. They were uttered by one of our known war criminals when he was a known known Secretary of Defense, one we apparently didn’t know we didn’t know (how excruciatingly awful he was). Now I don’t know where he is but I don’t know I don’t know (for sure, anyway). But I digress.

The reason I resurrected this marvelous quotation is because somehow it seems to me it has something to do with Obama’s new nuclear defense plan. As I understand it, we will not use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have nuclear weapons and have signed a nuclear treaty saying they will not have them. Under former President Bush and his minder, Dick the Slimy, we apparently reserved the right to attack anyone with nuclear weapons. Thus Obama’s new plan is regarded by many as an improvement that might help to deter those who might wish to have nuclear weapons, and also might make those who do have them think more carefully about having and using them. This is part of Obama’s strategy to someday have a nuclear-free world (almost surely a pipe dream, but a good one). The problem with this new plan is that it makes an exception for Iran. But Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and, as far as is known, is in compliance with existing rules about nuclear energy. The last I heard about this was that Iran does not have nuclear weapons, has no desire to have them, and there is no real evidence they are trying to produce one. Unfortunately, no one seems to believe this and even today you can hear important people say things that just assume Iran is going to have nuclear bombs. Here is a remarkable case in which we don’t know a known, we don’t know a known unknown, and in fact we don’t seem to know we don’t know. This, however, does not keep us from pretending that we know they are going to have nuclear bombs when we don’t in fact know that we know. If this is confusing, so is Obama’s new nuclear plan. It is not only confusing because of the Iranian situation, but also because when push comes to shove (if it ever does) we would use nuclear weapons anyway. Far be it for me to make sense out of this, but I guess by changing the Bush/Cheney threat to nuke everyone indiscriminately to nuke more discriminately is an improvement. If the rest of the world is as confused as I am they may believe this.

Another interesting question that has arisen has to do with whether or not using drones as we have been doing is legal. Being a more or less reasonable person I would have thought the legal status should have been determined before we began using them. But I guess this would be just as silly as expecting us to know whether or not drugs might be harmful before letting them on the market (it is, after all, the American way). Although I am not a legal expert (or even an expert), I should think that using drones to kill people in countries with which we are not even at war would be illegal. Of course in war lots of things are done that are illegal and nothing is usually done about it. We just acknowledge that, yeah, lots of things happen in war, and let it go at that. What I find of even more interest in this discussion of drone warfare is that no one even bothers to ask if it is moral. I guess the assumption is that if it is legal it must also be moral, but of course morality has little to do with it. Personally, I think using drones is both illegal and highly immoral, to say nothing about, arguably, cowardly and disgusting. It certainly has none of the glory of something like “Into the valley of death rode the four hundred.” Nor does it reflect the nobility of conflict as in “There is neither border, breed, nor birth, when two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.” What passes for warfare now has nothing to do with what warfare was in the past. It is not really war, it is just mass slaughter in which “He who has the most toys wins.” I cannot reconcile myself to the thought of a few nerds sitting in Nevada guiding their drones around the world killing people at weddings and funerals (and occasionally someone who might clearly be defined as an enemy). I wonder if they sharpen their skills on videogames.

Do you think that now that Acorn has been shown to have been mistakenly and illegally accused of something they did not do they might be reinstated? Fat chance, Republicans will never allow an organization to sign up poor voters and would surely block any attempt along those lines. This is a classic case of “roviation,” whereby, in this case, an entire organization was slimed and maligned and forced out of business. Karl Rove has certainly left a legacy of which he, at least, is no doubt proud. He’s been sort of a non-violent Timothy McVay for a long time but never held accountable for his actions. Shame, remorse, guilt, compassion, fair play, truth, and conscience are all concepts foreign to those trained and influenced by Rove and his political strategies and techniques.

LKBIQ:
Lady you bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
And there is such confusion in my powers.
William Shakespeare

TILT:
Jerusalem artichokes are not artichokes and have nothing to do with Jerusalem.

Derelicts

Three teenagers buy an iPad,
destroy it with a baseball bat,
for “something to do.”

Derelicts would appear to be an appropriate term for our current 41 Republican Senators. They have apparently been abandoned by their constituencies and they have certainly been negligent in their duties. I don’t remember precisely what the oath of office is for Senators, but I’m pretty certain it has to do with faithfully upholding the Constitution and discharging their duties of office. I cannot state exactly what their duties of office are because as far as I know they are not specifically listed anywhere. But I believe it is entirely reasonable to assume that duties of office do not mean voting like robots for whatever the Republican Party itself insists they should do. In general I don’t believe they are either supposed to or required to vote consistently along party lines. This has sometimes been a problem for some Senators, such as Idaho Senators Crapo and Risch, who automatically vote (at least over 90% of the time) for whatever the Republican party wants. Former Senator Craig did the same. With Senators like this you might as well send robots to the Senate, they would be cheaper to maintain and could vote the party line almost unfailingly.

Senators are important people. There are only 100 of them, two from each states, and they hold and can exercise a great deal of power. Now you might think that people elected to such important positions are elected to serve the best interests of their constituents, or at least to use their power, influence, and judgment for the benefit our country and citizens. You would not expect them to simply act robotically, without thought, conscience, or judgment, and consistently without doing what would appear to be the best and most reasonable thing for their state and nation.

If this is true, how do you explain that for over a year now virtually not one of our current Republican Senators has ever voted “yes” on any proposal put forward by the Obama administration? Can it possibly be the case that there has never been an issue upon which Republican Senators might have disagreed, and one or more broken ranks to vote in the affirmative? Not one Republican thought the Stimulus bill was necessary? Not one that thought universal health care might be a good thing? Not one who thought banks should be regulated? Not one who believed a “bailout” might have been necessary? I find it impossible to believe that out of 100 powerful Senators, supposedly responsible public officials, elected specifically to serve the public, there have been virtually none that have broken with the party line of voting “no” on everything. To me this can only mean one thing, dereliction of duty. These powerful and presumably independent public servants have voted consistently to put party ahead of the public interest. Although I am not certain, I doubt this has ever happened before, at least not so consistently. I say they have been abandoned by their constituents because I see no evidence any of them have been held accountable for this rather unprecedented behavior by those constituents. And unless carrying out the duties of office mean simply voting the party line no matter what the issue, they have been universally derelict in their duties. They have seemingly become nothing but mindless robots, with no independent thoughts or beliefs of their own, just dutifully doing as they have been told. This is certainly not my idea of what a Senator should be. Perhaps I have the wrong idea about Senatorial duties, but I doubt it. In any case these 41 U.S. Senators should be highly ashamed of what they have done and I hope history will record their unprincipled attempt to bring down our elected administration. I would also think that every single one of them should be voted out of office for this mindless, despicable, and virtually treasonous behavior. In their lust for power they have abandoned their responsibilities as citizens and representatives of the people.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

From The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service

War Dances - book

War Dances, Sherman Alexie (Grove Press, N.Y., 2009)

I rarely read fiction anymore, and even more rarely, contemporary short stories. But as I was desperate for something to read, and our small (but fine) library failed to produce any new non-fiction work I was interested in reading, I checked out this book of short stories by Sherman Alexie, knowing that he had recently won The National Book Award (for his book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, that I have not read). While I found the stories and poems collected in War Dances of interest, I cannot honestly claim to have truly enjoyed them. Interestingly enough, my failure to enjoy them is not, I think, because Alexie is an Indian, and also not because he is an ungifted writer. He seems to have come a long way from his earlier Angry Young Indian persona, and has obviously matured as a writer, although he understandably continues writing mostly about being an Indian and Indian themes. In addition to his novels, short stories, and screenplays, he is also importantly a poet.

I suspect the reason I did not enjoy this book is the same reason that keeps me from reading contemporary fiction in general. For the most part I don’t find it enjoyable. I am, perhaps I should not admit it, old-fashioned when it comes to fiction. First, I want to enjoy it, not receive lessons on sociology and prejudice, but the themes that seem to predominate these days are usually dark and somewhat unpleasant. Second, I want a story, that is, something with a plot, a beginning, a question or problem, and an end. Much of today’s fiction seems to me to consist more of encounters, experiences, confrontations, stream-of-consciousness accounts that often seem written more for the sake of writing something than to tell a coherent story. I can’t say there is necessarily anything wrong with this type of prose, it’s just that I don’t usually enjoy it. Third, I object to the language. I am not particularly prudish about language and I don’t mind an occasional “fucking,” or “shit,” or even “mother-fucker,” if they seem really necessary (which is not usually the case in my opinion), but when such words occupy so much of the text they dominate it, I object. I believe writing in the language of the gutter, so to speak, is basically an insult to our language in general, our beautiful English language that deserves to be cherished, promoted, and enjoyed to its limits. If contemporary writers are hung up on realism and want to write about people who speak only in obscenities that is their right, but I don’t particularly want to read it, certainly not with the frequency with which it currently seems to occur. I take no umbrage at the so-called “free-speech movement,” that convinced people that words were really just words and should not have such shock value, and I enjoyed the pioneers like Lennie Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and others, but I did not interpret their message to mean that our literature should suddenly consist mostly of “shit, piss, fuck,” (the favorite expression of one of my friends whenever he was upset or frustrated), or that it should come to predominate our literature as it seems to be doing.

Contemporary fiction obviously reflects themes that our culture has become preoccupied with in recent years, so we have writers dealing with crime, addiction, war, homosexuality, and other such themes that formerly were not so prominent. It is in the nature of the case that such themes tend to be unpleasant, just as the language associated with them is in ways unpleasant. Thus it is understandable that Alexie, for example, can write of his father dying a “normal” Indian death of alcoholism and diabetes, or the killing with a baseball bat of an intruder stealing his videotapes, or how the inmates in a prison would treat Bruce Lee. I think he is at his best, however, when he recounts how he was hired to write a screenplay and then ordered to change it in ways that made no sense (“Fearful Symmetry”). I cannot explain why, when I read one of the feature stories (“The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless”), I could not escape the eerie feeling I was reading Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Banana Fish.” The two stories, quite different in terms of content, do seem to me to be similar in some ways, perhaps in their surreality. There are a few poems included in War Dances. Here, too, I have a problem, because I do not understand poetry very well and I find most contemporary poetry even harder to understand than the more classical stuff. I guess Alexie is considered a competent and talented poet. You couldn’t prove it by me as I am completely “tone deaf” when it comes to poetry, especially modern poetry.

I suppose my, shall I say, “discontent” with contemporary fiction is a result of my having lived for so long. I just do not like “modern art” in general: painting, sculpture, design, architecture, music, you name it. When I want to read short stories or novels I always return to the past; masters like Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Wolfe (I know, I know, he’s passé at the moment), and others. One of my all-time favorites, a genuine story-teller, is W. Somerset Maugham, who writes wonderful stories in a fine but not ostentatious prose style. All of these writers, and many more, wrote wonderful short stories and novels without all the “potty talk,” and I, for one, think our literature was all the better for it.

But do not let my out-of-fashion opinions keep you from reading (and possibly enjoying) War Dances. Sherman Alexie does have interesting things to say, an active imagination, unusual themes, and a gift for writing poetry and prose.

On Pedophelia

Italian road sign, “Attenzione Prostitute,”
featuring provocatively dressed woman,
confuses drivers, are they crossing or available?

It appears that the Unholy Church of the Unrepentant Pedophiles is coming in for more and more criticism, and rightly so I think. For a while the Church tried to pass off the problem of pedophilia as a peculiarly American problem. But now it has spread so far around the world that can no longer be used to dismiss it. It seems even the Pope himself is now thought to be guilty of protecting pedophiles, and there is, I gather, evidence this may well be so. This scandal involves quite a number of questions that are of interest. For example, some say the Pope cannot even be questioned about his role in defending pedophiles because he is a head of state (the Vatican). Does this mean, like Yoo’s argument about executive power, that heads of state are not subject to the same laws as other people? This seems unreasonable to me, what if the President or the Pope were themselves guilty of pedophilia (I am not suggesting this might be so). I mean, are there individuals who are in fact above the law? I do not mean this as a diatribe against the Catholic Church, but as an atheist and a non-Catholic I must confess I have always thought the Catholic Church was, shall I just say, “medieval.” When I think of grown, mostly older men, walking around in brocaded gowns and funny hats (and sometimes shoes), looking like wealthy women in the 16th century, I cannot take them seriously. What is worse, they attempt to tell the rest of the world how to behave and promote ideas that are themselves medieval. No female priests, for example. No birth control, abortions, euthanasia, and etc. As I understand it many members of the church do not even follow this advice these days, and I gather their membership is declining. Given how completely out of touch they seem to be I do not find this surprising.

But what I find of the greatest interest is how widespread pedophilia must have been for such a long time. Was there something about the Church that attracted pedophiles, or did priests become pedophiles because they could not marry? I do not find this latter condition to be very convincing because one would think priests violating their vows of celibacy with females would be much more common that it apparently is. Further, I think pedophiles, for the most part, are in fact interested in children specifically rather than other sex objects. I am not surprised that pedophilia occurred in the Church, I am surprised at how common it seems to have been. I am also surprised to learn how common it apparently is outside the Church. For example, the Boy Scouts are now in the midst of a scandal over pedophilia and it appears to have been far from rare in that organization. I note there have also been cases among some of the more fundamental congregations. And pedophiles are arrested, I guess, almost every day, especially in conjunction with child pornography. It also occurs with some regularity in prisons, and, of course, is known to be widespread in Afghanistan (I believe that it is more or less culturally accepted there). And adult/boy “love” was practiced in Greek culture and has long been fairly common in English boarding schools.

As pedophilia appears to have been so commonplace it makes me wonder all the more about human sexuality. To me the desire to have sex with children seems completely unnatural. But it is apparently fairly common. Has this always been so, or does this have something to do with evolution or cultural change? As far as I could determine the people I worked with in the New Guinea Highlands were completely unaware of such problems and, when informed about them, thought it was too stupid to be true (it apparently does occur in some places in New Guinea but is, I believe, pretty rare). When I think of pedophilia along with the current apparently insatiable demand for Viagra and Cialis, and that, also along with the more widespread acceptance of homosexuality in general, plus the seeming growing acceptance of oral sex (which prior to Hefner was regarded as a disgusting no-no), and all of this along with what we have learned in recent years about sadistic and masochistic sex, and other perversions so strange as to be almost unbelievable, I think our views about human behavior in general, and sexuality in particular, might need some serious updating. It could be the case that all of this has always been the case and has only come to light now in more enlightened times. I suspect, however, that even Freud, if he were still with us, would find his views on human sexuality rather naïve. “Sexual addiction” has not yet officially been including in the Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual (I forget its official title), but I bet it will before long (anything to make a buck), and I won’t even be the least bit surprised when a pill for it is discovered and marketed.

LKBIQ:
I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.
George Burns

TILT:
Giant bamboo is the largest plant of the grass family.

Yeah, so what?

Wife slips and falls in wet bathroom
after hitting drunken husband
in the face for missing the toilet.

A decline in the salmon and steelhead runs in the Snake River prompt a study by the Army Corps of Engineers into the feasibility of breaching some dams. This study, it is said, will cost 20 million dollars and take years to complete. Then, if breaching is recommended, it will be up to Congress to decide.
Question: Why bother?

Another yeah, so what, moment: A Federal Judge has determined that the Bush/Cheney unwarranted wiretapping was illegal. Most everyone knew it was illegal all along but I guess it is nice to have it confirmed legally. So now that it has been do you seriously believe anything will be done about it, that anyone will be held accountable? I don’t. Bush/Cheney committed other crimes far more egregious than illegal wiretapping and have not been held accountable, so why should this be any different? The fact is, our Attorney General and Justice Department simply do not function as they should. No one seems to care. I suggest this is not a good sign for the future of our nation.

Recently a 72 year-old woman was hit with a stun gun because she refused to sign a traffic ticket. A 10 year-old elementary student was hit with a stun gun because he was bothering other children. These are only two cases out of how many? I guess they are examples of our highly-trained and efficient police forces at work.

Has anyone given any serious consideration to what the effects of all the pharmaceutical advertising may be? It is perfectly obvious, for one thing the cost of all this advertising is adding substantially to the cost of drugs. I guess it is also a kind of boon for the legal profession as they no longer have to chase ambulances. Now they just advertise themselves in order to find people who may have suffered harm from different drugs and stuff, build a clientele and sue (think of all the time and gasoline they are saving). But what I’m really concerned about are hypochondriacs. Over the years I have had several (perhaps even many) hypochondriacal friends. Most of them could not read or even peruse medical dictionaries or similar books because if they did they would immediately worry they had whatever it was they were reading about. At least a couple of them were actually forbidden by their spouses or others from reading medical books. I have one of these friends right now. He calls me almost every week. I tell him to stay away from medical people, medical books, magazines, and television. This results in his telling me all his medical problems, in great detail. I’ve known him for years. I love him. I tell him, “Buddy, you’re nuts.” He knows he’s nuts but he can’t help it. So what are these poor unfortunates to do, not watch television? That doesn’t seem fair. But what are you to think if you suffer from this problem, when you not only hear about dozens upon dozens of different drugs you should ask your doctor about, but you also must listen to lists of the potential (and serious) side effects? Fortunately I do not suffer from this problem, but I confess that even I feel somewhat queasy when I have to listen to the potentially horrible side effects that might result from drugs that I don’t even need in the first place. Perhaps hypochondriacs should get together as a group, contact some of these eager lawyers, and sue the pharmaceuticals, on the grounds they are suffering grievous mental problems, loss of sleep, unnecessary worry, inability to enjoy television, and even loss of consortium. This is such a worthwhile and potentially lucrative idea I almost wish I was a hypochondriac.

LKBIQ:
Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
Ambrose Bierce

TILT:
Cats seem to have no ability to taste sugar.