Music of the Day: Earl Klugh, Twinkle

This past Saturday I was sitting outside the security “screening” area at the major airport closest to our fine mountain town, awaiting the arrival of MLB from points north and awaiting the arrival of my favorite cousin LAB and her husband Mike from points east. I misjudged the length of time necessary to complete the drive to the airport, so I spent about an hour reading and doing a little people-watching, always a fun thing for a hick-from-the-sticks in the big city. After my rear end went completely numb, I got up and wandered over to the electronic board to check the arrival of the two aircraft I was waiting for—and someone called my name. I was briefly taken aback—I know few people in the big city, but every now and then when in the big city I run into another hick-from-the-sticks and, sure enough, there was the last history department chairman I worked for eight years ago.

He greeted me as if we were old friends, which I thought was odd—I never found him to be particularly likeable or helpful or supportive. In fact, he was often the opposite—curmudgeonly, obstructionist, and dismissive. Being the polite sort of chap I am, I palavered briefly, asked about his health (obviously not too hot—he’d shrunk a few inches and looked frail and sickly), and then I said my goodbyes, checked the arrival times of the nice people I was picking up, and wandered back to my seat. When I told MLB who I’d seen in the airport, she muttered an oath under her breath, and we laughed, and then I put the man out of my mind.

The next day, with LAB and Mike in tow, MLB and I cruised up the mountain pass to one of our favorite artistic haunts for lunch and some half-serious gallery-hopping. At lunch, over some nice food and good conversation, I glanced up at the door, and there he was, the old department chairman, for the second time in two days. I had not seen the man in eight years, and suddenly I was seeing him every day and in every place I went.

Weird.

But here’s what struck me afterwards. Privately I almost delighted in seeing John’s (not his real name) frail appearance. I don’t normally think of myself as a cruel or vindictive person, but I was feeling both cruel and vindictive and a little pleased that John (not his real name) was looking small and sickly. This is not a good thing, giving in to the baser desire to see unpleasant people getting along unpleasantly and I have to make sure that I don’t give in to this again in the future.

But if I see John (not his real name) again today or tomorrow, I’m going to assume that he’s stalking me for some bizarre reason and I’ll have to punch him in the nose, which I probably should have done a long time ago.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Dave Koz, Wake Up Call

As you no doubt know, Google has a “news” link that you can click on to check up on world events, politics, sports, and (of course) entertainment stuff. Today, during a brief lull at the slaughterhouse, I checked the news and found this little item on Reuters.

Here’s the headline: “Fidel Castro attacks McCain and Bush in column.” Okay, I thought, that’s grist for the blog-mill—a communist dictator and decades-long oppressor of his people attacks our president and the Republican nominee for the presidency. This is a good thing. Attack away, Fidel—it can only help Mr. McCain with any thoughtful segment of the American electorate.

So, I started reading the article; here’s the first paragraph in its entirety: “Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted Republican presidential candidate John McCain for his criticism of the Cuban government this week, saying McCain had shown why he finished near the bottom of his class at West Point.”

Ahem. Yes.

The fifth paragraph reads this way: “McCain, in his book ‘Faith of My Fathers,’ admitted that he was among the last five students in his course at West Point,” Castro wrote. “He’s showing it.”

Ahem, again.

Next paragraph: “Castro previously stepped aside in July 2006 following intestinal surgery but still writes periodic columns.”

Finally, at the bottom of this little item in Reuters, in a brief parenthetical, this appears: “Reporting by Jeff Franks; Editing by Bill Trott).”

What could have happened here? Let’s review: Senator McCain did not attend the United States Military Academy at West Point; he attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis.

While Mr. McCain freely admits in his book Faith of My Fathers his low class ranking at graduation, only someone who hasn’t really read the book would think that Mr. McCain attended West Point. Writing “columns” for the Communist Party newspaper Granma apparently requires no actual research or fact-checking when one is a former dictator; apparently the “editors” at Granma didn’t know the difference between West Point and the Naval Academy or they were too frightened of Fidel to tell him of his mistake. That may explain a lot about Granma, but it doesn’t explain the two dudes who work for Reuters, the reporter Jeff Franks and the editor, Bill Trott. Apparently both took Fidel’s word on Mr. McCain’s military education, which says a lot about both of them and Reuters. Why wouldn’t either the reporter or his editor do five minutes worth of research to check the veracity of the former dictator’s statements? Furthermore, why wouldn’t either the reporter or the editor know enough about the Republican nominee for the presidency to immediately spot this error? Is anyone at Reuters paying attention?

WARNING: Next time you read a story from Reuters, beware—fact-checking and accuracy may not be part of the article.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE

Music of the Day: Rippingtons, High Roller

There’s a well-meaning fellow who comes into the slaughterhouse now and then to buy brains and every once in a while he comments on my reading habits, most recently a snide remark about Douglas J. Feith, author of the book I’m currently reading, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism. “Ah, Feith,” he said, “he’s been widely discredited.” End of story. Book, and author, dismissed in six words. I didn’t argue—the man is a reporter for our local newspaper and every view he has ever expressed in my company has been disparaging of (1) our current president (2) any Republican president in American history (3) the military, and (4) anyone who has ever been stupid enough to serve in the American military. Why waste my breath arguing with someone who needs to buy brains?

Anyway, he offered to send along to me some recent articles he’d read in that fine journal of thought, research, erudition, learning, scholarship, and opinion, Newsweek. Yep. Newsweek. I stifled my snickering as I wrapped up his to-go package of beef brains and politely said, “Yes, send me the article. I’ll be happy to read it.” I was thinking to myself, “More grist for the blog-mill now that our subscription to Newsweek has finally expired.”

So, he sent me a piece about the happy Libyans who volunteer to serve as suicide bombers in Iraq and their “motivation” for doing so, which not surprisingly comes down to “an explosive mix of desperation, pride, and religious fervor.” Who says we shouldn’t try a little “profiling” at airport screening centers? The piece was not especially edifying, but Ken (not his real name) asked me about it the following week when he was back in the shop buying more brains. I told him, in a little white lie, that I hadn’t finished the article because I was too busy reading other stuff, hoping that would put him off—but instead, he offered to send me ANOTHER article. Damn! What could I say? He’s the only customer who buys brains, so I said, “Why yes, Ken, go ahead, send me another article.”

Sure enough, Ken (not his real name) sent me a piece by Fareed Zakaria entitled The Rise of the Rest, which is apparently adapted from his most recent book entitled The Post-American World. I won’t be rushing out to buy Zakaria’s new book anytime soon. Here’s why. . . .

Let me see if can accurately characterize the opening paragraphs of Mr. Zakaria’s screed; by the way, I gave this thing a cursory read only because Mr. Zakaria is semi-famous—he has appeared on the Sunday morning gab-fest with George What’s-His-Name-Opolous (and perhaps still does—it’s not on my list of things to watch on Sunday morning, particularly if there’s a hockey game on the TeeVee) and he has, at one time or another, authored something in Foreign Affairs (still a reputable rag), which is a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations. According to Mr. Z, Americans are “glum,” and Americans believe that the country is “on the wrong track.” There are, he states in the first paragraph, “reasons to be pessimistic—a financial panic and looming recession, a seemingly endless war in Iraq, and the ongoing threat of terrorism.” But, he says, that’s not enough to explain the present atmosphere of “malaise.” Our anxiety, he says, “springs from something much deeper, a sense that large and disruptive forces are coursing through the world” and that “the patterns of the past are being scrambled.”

Now comes the evidence according to Mr. Z. Ready? Here we go: “The world’s tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai.” (Question: Are they moving it, or is this just a poorly constructed sentence?) Next: “Its [the world’s] largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India.” (Why don’t we build more refineries, large or small, in this country, Mr. Z? I can guess, but that’s not the point of today’s screed, so I’ll move on.) Further: “Its [the world’s] largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood. Once quintessentially American icons have been usurped by the natives. The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn’t make the top ten. In the most recent rankings, only two of the world’s ten richest people are American.” Leave aside for the moment the fatuous and spurious notions that America as a nation has been defined by its Ferris wheels and casinos and our penchant for shopping—that’s what I was telling myself, forcing myself to go on, press on, Boy, keep reading, it might get better, it might soon make sense!

And now, here’s my favorite sentence in the opening paragraphs written by Mr. Z: “These lists [above] are arbitrary and A BIT SILLY [emphasis added], but consider that only ten years ago, the United States would have serenely topped almost every one of these categories.”

Here’s what my Word dictionary/thesaurus lists as synonyms for “silly”—stupid, ridiculous, impractical, mad, childish, inane, asinine, juvenile, and harebrained, all of which, I think, would work well to describe the “lists” Mr. Z quotes in the opening of his article. Keep that in mind as you now read Mr. Z’s next sentence, to wit: “These factoids reflect a seismic shift in power and attitudes.” All those stupid, ridiculous, impractical, mad, childish, inane, asinine, juvenile, and harebrained things now “reflect a seismic shift in power an attitudes.” Yeah, that’s definitely true—but only if as a reader you read this stuff while simultaneously not paying attention to the words being used by the author. And, by the way, the word “factoid” does not appear in my 57 pound Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary—I suspect it is what’s known as a “back formation” or a neologism meant to convey hipness or newness or perhaps some relationship to scientific knowledge, but how it clarifies or expands the meaning of the word “fact” escapes me.

I’m sorry, but I have more important things to do, and more important things to read, than this kind of mushy-headed babble, even that penned by a semi-famous guy like Mr. Z; I’m not really that interested in his view of the “post-American world” if what appears above is what passes for thought in Mr. Z’s mind.

All of which means that the next time Ken (not his real name) comes in for brains, I’ll have to pretend, again, that I’ve read the stuff he’s given me.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Tia Fuller, Just a Journey

Mr. Obama is now showing a hypersensitivity that ought to be both troubling to Democratic voters and instructive to “undecided,” independent, and waffling-Republican voters. He allowed himself to get worked up over the mention of appeasement (the A-word) in a recent George W. Bush speech, although as many have noted, Mr. Bush did not mention Mr. Obama by name (nor did he mention Mrs. Clinton by name either and she, too, got her undies in a bunch by the use of the A-word).

Mr. Obama’s reaction was based upon what his camp called the “implication” that Mr. Bush was referring to Mr. Obama. This is interesting on more than one level because it seems to indicate: (1) that Mr. Obama is now convinced that he is the center of the political universe; (2) that Mr. Obama knows his position vis-à-vis Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other terrorist-based organizations and states is a precursor to policies that can accurately be called “appeasement; and (3) that he doesn’t take even implied criticism of his foreign policy notions very well (probably because of reason number two, above).

Interestingly, someone in the Bush camp indicated that Mr. Bush’s remarks about appeasement were aimed at the Former Peanut-Farmer-In-Chief, the execrable Mr. Jimmy Carter; at this juncture this seems to me a wasted and belated effort to reconnect Mr. Carter to reality—belated because similar remarks could have (and should have) preceded his recent trip to the Middle East to consort with actual terrorists, and wasted because Mr. Carter is fundamentally inconsequential in American and world politics and because the Bush administration was not going to prevent Mr. Carter from again embarrassing himself by palavering with fascistic thugs of Middle Eastern extraction. What makes folks in the Bush administration think that Mr. Carter will change after a nebulous reference to the A-word? And furthermore, why bother?

There are, no doubt, some smart Republican strategists (or, if you prefer, “strategerists”) out there right now gauging Mr. Obama’s reaction to Mr. Bush’s remarks as a sign of weakness, defensiveness, and vulnerability. Mr. McCain, too, may sniff the fear in Mr. Obama’s girly-man remarks about wanting all political discourse to remain lofty and civil and at his “elevated” (and vacuous) rhetorical level. He wants to play nice, he wants Mr. McCain to play by his rules, and wants not to get down and dirty—all of which, by the way, is perfectly legitimate and wonderful, and when you think about it, it can make you feel warm and cuddly and oh-so-good.

Mr. Obama may indeed want “change” to occur that takes the rough and tumble out of American politics, and perhaps that’s a good thing; when it comes to dealing with people who have openly, and frequently, avowed to destroy America, to kill as many of us as they can, people who have said and continue to say that Israel must be “wiped off the face of the earth,” Mr. Obama’s call for a “change” to the sweet nothings of diplomacy with terrorist thugs is a frightening and dangerous prospect.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

*By the way, if you have not yet read George Orwell’s 1946 essay of that title, Politics and the English Language, or if has been a while since the last time you read it, this election year might be a good time to revisit Orwell’s thinking on the importance of clarity in language. As a matter of fact, I’m gong to take my own advice and re-read the essay right now. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Music of the Day: Jaco Pastorious Big Band, Havona

I see that the world famous high school graduate, and constant critic of American foreign policy (or more specifically, Republican-based American foreign policy), Mr. Sean Penn has inserted himself into Democratic party politics with some recent comments on Mr. Obama’s potential as a human being, leader, and elected official. Recall, if you will, that Mr. Penn has become enamored with the minor thug and dictator in Venezuela, Mr. H. Chavez, who, in Mr. Penn’s view, perhaps has reached his potential as a human being, leader, and elected official. Mr. Penn apparently went on to say that Mr. Obama would pay some unspecified price for not being radical enough as an elected official in the American government, which sounds like some bizarre Hollywood-style threat to make unflattering “documentary” movies or some such thing. Mr. Penn smokes a lot, even in France, where smoking is banned, so he is a bona fide rebel and a man of great physical and intellectual courage (despite his diminutive stature). His expertise in foreign policy issues dates back to his days playing the wild high school student Jeff Spicoli in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, plus as a child he once saw his father snub Elia Kazan. Also, Mr. Penn the younger had two years of acting lessons in lieu of college coursework, so despite his negative comments about Mr. Obama’s potential, he may well still harbor a desire to supplant Dr. Rice as our next Secretary of State should Mr. Obama assume occupancy of the White House in 2009.

Alas, this is another instance of someone “famous” taking himself seriously in matters about which he likely knows little or nothing. The great virtue of being “famous” of course is that one is able to say, or do, almost anything without risking one’s “fame.” The other great virtue is that “famous” people are rarely held to account for their outrageous words or behavior. The greatest virtue of all is that “famous” people can say and do really infamous things and, paradoxically, earn more “fame.” Mr. Penn is no longer much seen practicing his admittedly prodigious talents as an actor, but his fame persists, mostly these days on account of his political pronouncements and proclivities. He is taken seriously nowhere but in the world of film (Cannes, Hollywood, and so forth) but still his emanations continue. In matters that are truly important he is, still, just the mouse that roared. . . .

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.