Music of the Day: Frank Zappa, Overnight Sensation.

Thought Number One--Tolerating the Intolerable (and the Intolerant). One of the east coast bastions of academe, Columbia University, invited the saber-rattling, apocalypse-loving president of Iran, M. Ahmadinejad, to speak on their campus, ostensibly to further "educate" the students there (but about what it wasn't made clear). The school's president, apparently in an attempt to ameliorate the public (and alumni) outrage over the invitation, took some half-hearted prefatory cheap shots at his guest, and then allowed the man to speak. Free speech for the man who does everything possible to stifle free speech in his own country; I wonder if he received an honorarium?

In Peggy Noonan's piece in the Wall Street Journal today, she argued that we Americans needed to hear M. Ahmadinejad speak because, she wrote, it's good for us to hear our "foes speak uncensored." Normally I find Peggy Noonan's thinking to be right on, but I think this time she doesn't have it right--we already know what this Iranian nut-job thinks about the West and America and Israel and the Holocaust, so it escapes me how we might be further edified by another of his nut-job rants. It's bad enough that he had a forum at the United Nations--there he was preaching to the anti-American choir, so no big deal; but in my view, it's worse that he had a forum at an American university. If ever there was a case of the tolerant tolerating the intolerable, this was it; no wonder bin Laden and his ilk think Americans are weak, sniveling softies who deserve slaughter and ignominy.

Thought Number Two--The Newsweek Factor. Again, kudos to the anonymous soul who sent us the subscription to this appalling rag, for it does provide grist for the mill and considerable unintentional humor, too. This week's edition had an overlong piece about people called, if memory serves me correctly, "freegans." These are folks who call themselves vegans, but with a twist--these are vegans who do not BUY food, which would be giving in to the evil capitalist monster, but instead go dumpster-diving to retrieve discarded food from garbage bins, trash heaps, and other places that once can find "free" detritus. There is a gentleman here in our semi-rural mega-plex who, it seems, might be a "freegan" pioneer--I have seen him around the square for more than a few years, reaching into gutters to snag the incompletely smoked cigarette; I've often noticed him lounging about the local Salvation Army outpost awaiting his next free something-or-other, and just yesterday he was running a finger through the change slot in the machines that dispense newspapers on various corners in town. The people of my parent's generation had a name for "freegans" before that ugly neologism was coined and it was this--bums. The only catchy slogan I could come up with was: Think Globally, Eat Garbage Locally.

Thought Number Three--World War II and World War IV. The Ken Burns series on World War II is better than I thought it would be and deserves your close attention (thanks to Dr. Phil for turning my attention to the series); and Norman Podhoretz's book, World War IV, is as good as I thought it would be. I recommend both to you and i suspect I'll have more here about World War IV once I get my teeth into it.

AJ

Music of the Day: Paul Simon, You're the One

I have, for a whole variety of reasons, more or less removed myself from the world of ideas and politics and sound-bites and policy flip-flops and radio talk-shows and nightly/daily newscasts of any stripe--we have had too many other important things transpire of late, so even my attempt to keep my brain involved in matters intellectual has gone by the wayside (although every now and then I would find time to read a few pages of one of the four or five books I'm trying to read).

So, here's a partial list of the important things:

A funeral of a beloved man, a World War II veteran.
A wedding of two really lovely young people.
Dear Old Mom's recent respiratory difficulties.
An ill spouse--yes, MLB has been "down" with some unspecified malady. We have both spent too much time recently either in doctor's offices, medical labs, or emergency rooms.
A son who left a job he loved because of a management decision that got someone else fired.
A friend who had an unscheduled surgical procedure to remove an organ.

So, here's a partial list of the less important things:

The U.S. Open--it's hard not to watch good tennis on the TeeVee.
Attending a baseball game with my old buddy Cliff (another World War II veteran).
Work at the slaughterhouse--as per usual.

There is too much to sort out from all of these events (it has been semi-crazy for a few weeks) to get at right now, so any comments on these things will likely come at a later time. I do want to try to finish the Lee Harris book (The Suicide of Reason) and comment upon it before too long--I think it's an important book, but I need to finish the damned thing before I can begin to write about it. And, of course, RB had me read an excerpt of something else that I now have to read, so that will likely be next--the good news is that the two works are related, so perhaps I'll be able to make a connection or two after having read both.

Thanks for checking in on the blog, good readers--more later, I promise.

AJ

I have a more complete posting in the works, something that explains, in brief, the recent dearth of postings at this fine site; give me another day or so and I'll crank out some more screed for ya'.

AJ