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

Music of the Day: Lyle Mays, Street Dreams

Yesterday, January 22, 2007, I heard some pundit-type on the radio say that one of the watchwords for the 2008 presidential election would be "imagine." I didn't catch much more than that as I negotiated my way over an icy road towards town, but I did hear him allude to the idea that the Democratic party was going to have to explicate their imaginings for the future of America in order to capture the presidency in '08.

That's an interesting idea. If nothing else, we ought to pay attention to what the Democrats have to say about the future of the United States of America, especially with respect to important things such as the Islamic jihad against Western values, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the continuing crisis with Iran, and how we can best defend ourselves from these barbarians and advance liberty and freedom in other parts of the world. I for one am very interested in what NEW methods they propose to successfully prosecute war against our enemies in the pursuit of VICTORY; in fact, it would be nice to hear a Democratic candidate utter the word "victory" at any point during a campaign, but i'm not going to hold my breath. For that matter, I haven't heard many Republicans talk about VICTORY either, which frankly is more disquieting, but it seems at least somewhat more likely that a Republican may actually utter the word and suggest following a course that could lead to victory. The Democrats have had ample time to carp about every aspect of the current "war on terror," so if they propose different strategies that will lead us more quickly to victory I'm all for that--but again, I'm not going to hold my breath.

Although my powers of political prognostication are not especially hot (see my earlier bonehead posting on the November '06 election), I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the Democratic focus will be on issues far less significant or dangerous, such as "global environmental change," or "health care," or "securing the social safety net." I'm guessing that this is what the Democrats will "imagine" for 2008--policy papers and more legislation and getting those pesky Iranians to talk to us so that their soccer team doesn't miss the next World Cup, and that sort of thing. They will "imagine" a future in which all Americans will have "free" health care; they will "imagine" a future in which all Americans will stop driving those damned SUV's and start driving cute little hybrid cars (which, in my opinion, look like dinosaur turds); they will "imagine" digging deeper into our pockets to provide more services to all of the various sub-groups who wish to feed at the federal trough. I'm guessing they will "imagine" back into discourse all the stuff of the old Democratic party, such as rampant racism and sexism and the evils of capitalism and don't forget the homelessness problem. . . .

Meanwhile, the people who wish to fly planes filled with innocent passengers into our buildings filled with innocent regular Americans will snicker at our weakness and make further plans to kill us in our homes and office buildings. Hey, maybe we will need that universal "free" health care after all. . . .

So, when you hear some politician telling you it's time to "imagine" a new America, allow the hair on the back of your neck to stand up--that's a sign, my friend, to be prepared for the worst. Instead of trying to "imagine" universal health care, try to imagine fire in our streets. Try to imagine a nuclear weapon being detonated in your favorite American city. Try to imagine the capitulation of all of Europe to Islamic fundamentalists bent on killing more Americans. Try to imagine things happening that will make September 11, 2001 seem like child's play. If you are able to imagine these things, they might take your mind off "global environmental change." Stop worrying about the polar ice caps and start worrying about your local neighborhood mosque.

Finally, one of the great ironies and contradictions about being "conservative" is this: conservatives somehow manage to remain fundamentally positive and optimistic in spite of the many truly frightening challenges that face us because we believe we have many great things in this country that deserve preservation. Let's not wring our hands about the challenges from the barbarians, let's face them, outsmart them, and defeat them intellectually and militarily. And let's not get confused about what's really important--defeating by all means necessary the Islamic barbarians who seek to destroy us and our way of life. Then we can get to that messy "global environmental change" thing. . . .

AJ