Music of the Day: Spyrogyra, Stories Without Words

In October of 2006 a Republican congressman from Florida resigned from office because it was discovered that he had sent prurient e-mail messages to some congressional pages. Naturally, the same weasel-people who defended the former Narcissist in Chief, William Jefferson Clinton, were beside themselves with the revelation that a gay Republican was sending dirty electronic messages to various and sundry underlings (rather than, as in Clinton's case, ACTUALLY having sex with an intern, which didn't seem to bother the apologists at all).

And all of the usual media whiz-bangs were for weeks atwitter over this "scandal." Which brings me to this--the penchant for "instant analysis" that is rampant these days on both radio and the TeeVee. Actually, the term "instant analysis" is only half correct--it's nearly always instant, there's no question about that, but it most certainly is not analytical. It's just the same old posturing, and finger-pointing, and name-calling, and cheap-shot bloviating, along with the nightly appearance of different sets of four talking-heads interrupting each other and yapping at the same time. I predicted in my personal journal (pre-blog) that this particular "scandal" would disappear from the airwaves immediately following the November election and that in six months, the Average Joe on the street wouldn't be able to name the greasy former Florida congressman. I also noted that the "analysts" would soon be "analyzing" something else of profound importance, such as the newest super-model diet scandal.

So, even though we haven't yet reached the magic six-month mark, here is Today's Trivia Question: Can you name the greasy former Florida congressman over whom so much was made in October and November?

AJ

Music of the Day: Mark Knopfler, Shangri-La

Last weeks' dread is gone--I'm over that shit now. . . .

It was a scary thought, no question about it, but giving in to that kind of angst or fear or foreboding in precisely what the barbarians seek. Obviously they seek other things too--but running scared is just the first step in a whole negative succession of other truly dreadful steps on the declivity to capitulation and defeat. Yep, it's scary to think that the crazies might make their way to our little town in the middle of nowhere, and it's scary to think they might make their way to lots of little towns in the middle of nowhere, and it's scary to think they might make their way to many of our big towns and cities--but it shouldn't be so scary that we stop going about our business, or that we stop going about living our lives.

This continues to be a dynamic society and despite the constant internal sniping and weeping and wailing and the gnashing of teeth that we seem to engaged in with apparently increasing frequency, we're still evolving and growing and changing and improving ourselves as a people and as a nation. That is one of our great strengths--we have lots of different ideas at work here, lots of different folks bringing different things to the table, so we experiment and tease and play and subject things to scrutiny and the test of experience. Giving in to the fear brought on by the mad-dogs of jihad is an option, but this week it isn't one of my options.

It's helpful to remember that there have always been those who wished to subject free people to tyranny and slavery and the 21st century is not without its collection of murderous thugs masquerading as clerics, particularly in the Islamic world.

Not giving in to these people is an idea that needs reiteration and reaffirmation. And so, with that, last week's dread has passed.

AJ

Music of the Day: Metro, Tree People

Just the other day there was a fire in an old building in the downtown area of the metroplex near our homestead; because of a power shutdown that killed the office computers, and released the shackles connecting me to my desk and the evil CRT, I stumbled outside to gawk at the proceedings. The local firefighters were already out in force by the time I walked the couple of blocks to watch the action; they were pouring water onto the structure from above and a thick plume of black and gray smoke was billowing into the perfectly clear blue sky. Traffic was stopped at all nearby intersections so many of my fellow onlookers were standing in the street watching the scene. It was a moment of excitement in an otherwise dull day in our dull little metroplex out here in the hinterlands and I recall seeing some folks walking away from the scene engaged in normal conversations, laughing, heading back to their respective offices or homes or wherever.

I ruminated briefly on the lost possessions and disrupted lives of the people who inhabited the building and wondered how things would turn out for them now that this relatively minor conflagration perhaps became the central moment of their lives. As I walked away I glanced back and again saw the impressive black cloud of smoke and then the dread hit me--what would our little burg be like if some mad jihadist decided to bring his insane "religious" war to our placid downtown in the middle of nowhere? I flashed back immediately to 9/11/01 and the sight of New Yorkers running away from the collapsing buildings, covered in ash and dirt and God knows what else and a huge shiver ran through my body as I considered what that might look and feel like here.

It was a small fire, quickly extinguished, with no loss of life and no serious injury--but I haven't been able to shake that queasy, awful feeling that someday the truly bad guys will visit us in our safest places, in our smallest towns, in our most remote locations, and they'll try to burn down our buildings and kill some of us so that the rest of us give up, throw up our hands in surrender, and give in to whatever the hell it is they want to do to us or take from us. I don't want to hear the sound of wailing sirens and see smoke obscuring the sun, not out here in Dipstick Town, Hinterlands County. My dread lingers. . . .

AJ

Music of the Day: Caribbean Jazz Project, The Gathering

Here's what I'm reading these days, some with greater alacrity than others:

The Few: The American "Knights of the Air" Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain, by Alex Kershaw. There are some wonderful quotes here from Winston Churchill about fighting for the survival of the nation and the sacrifices necessary to make sure the fight ends in triumph--I hope lots of people read this book to be reminded of important things and what is sometimes required of the citizens of a free society.

Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, by Victor Sebestyen. This is an excellent book, especially if you need a reminder about how naive people are when it comes to totalitarian governments and the tyrants who run them; the Hugarian leadership consistently permitted itself to be duped by the Soviets, right up until the moment the tanks rolled into the streets of Budapest and crushed their frail attempt at achieving some semblance of freedom. Thousands of Hungarians paid with their lives for the craven weaseling of their leaders; there might be a lesson in this book for modern-day Americans. Sadly, the author attempts to place some of the blame for the failed revolution on the Eisenhower administration, but he also clearly indicates that Ike really couldn't do much to help the Hungarians. Damned if you do and damned if you don't--this rule seems to be applied more stringently to Republican presidents. I wonder why?

The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot, by Russell Kirk. Heavy book. My little brain is trying to wrap itself around the content, but I've been side-tracked by other readings. More on this later, maybe. . . .

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, by James D. Hornfischer. Haven't started this one yet; maybe i'll get to it this weekend.

Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America, by Brigitte Gabriel. Haven't started this one yet either, but want to read it before I start reading the next entry, which is. . . .

The Iraq Study Group Report, by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton. I'm guessing that after reading Ms. Gabriel's book, this one will just make me laugh.

Friendship: An Expose', by Joseph Epstein. Have you read anything by Epstein? If not, go on-line and buy something of his--you won't be disappointed. This book is a serious and not-so-serious look at friendship in all of its hues and shadings. I've been reading this one aloud to my wife at bedtime; it's nice to have good thoughts running around in one's head before going to sleep.

Our lives are still a bit unsettled these days, so it may be a while before I can make any kind of serious report on any of these books, but I'm workin' on 'em.

AJ

Music of the Day: Etta James, Born Under a Bad Sign

Through the miracle of satellites and cable and other technological whiz-bang stuff it's possible to sit in the comfort of one's home out here in the hinterlands and watch "live" tennis from Melbourne, Australia and the Australian Open. When the temperature is 24 degrees outside here, the mercury has climbed to 102 degrees there, and the players are sweating up a storm while chasing the little yellow ball from corner to corner. They have little canopies over the chairs the players use between games, everybody is quaffing huge quantities of bottled water and other concoctions to try to keep their brains from frying, and some have even resorted to ice bags around the neck between games. Summer Down Under. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

What isn't so wonderful though is all the shrieking and grunting that goes on with each shot from far too many of today's players; some of the women are egregiously loud, expelling monster shrieks with each stroke of the racquet, even on the balls that fall harmlessly into the net. I'm thinking of Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, either one of whom can be heard above the din created by the low-flying jetliners cruising over the National Tennis Center at Flushing Meadow in New York; tournament officials everywhere ought to issue ear plugs to paying customers about to watch a match with either one of these two drop-shotting divas. Hell, I can't watch a Sharapova match on television without having the mute button taped down on the remote--her noise just overpowers any joy I might derive from watching her play. Serena is just as bad, although her noise is more of a growl/shriek than a Sharapova-I'm-being-stabbed-in-the-chest kind of shriek that she emits on all of her shots. It's too much for me. I'm old school. . . .

On the men's side, the young Spaniard Rafael Nadal expels a huge grunt on every swing of the racquet and some of the other men have taken up the grunt with gusto; the timbre of male grunting isn't quite as jarring or nerve-wracking as the shrieking, but it's still annoying as hell. This New School exhalation while striking the ball makes me appreciate all the more players such as Roger Federer, who seems to be doing quite well, thank you very much, without sounding as if he's being punched in the face every time he hits a ball. Pete Sampras never grunted; Rod Laver never grunted; Ken Rosewall never grunted--in fact, I suspect that you would have had to cut off one of Rosewall's arms to get him to grunt. Even the blustering American Pancho Gonzalez never grunted. All these guys did was let their racquets make the noise. Laver is probably the greatest male player ever to step on a tennis court, Sampras was maybe a whisker behind Laver, and Federer, if he keeps playing the way he has the past couple of years, may prove to be better than both Laver and Sampras. None of them ever came close to uttering a grunt during a tennis match.

So I say to the New School players and coaches, keep it to yourself. If I want to hear grunting and shrieking, I'll go out back to where we slaughter the pigs.

AJ