Music of the Day: Yellowjackets, It’s Almost Gone

Here’s a name from the days of baseball lore—Luis Tiant. I have been, and remain, only a casual fan of baseball, not one of those statistic-spouting dweebs with baseball obsessive-compulsive-disorder, but I do remember in a vague sort of way Mr. Luis Tiant. He played, I think, for the Boston Red Sox and perhaps some other teams, too—you can Google him if you like and discover his baseball biography.

I mention him only because of the title of today’s piece—Tiant had an unusual pitching motion that featured various twists and turns and ups and downs and gyrations and spasms and twitches and so forth, all of which were apparently designed to deflect the hitter’s attention away from the one thing he was supposed to be watching with complete focus and concentration—the baseball. Tiant was fairly successful as a pitcher and he reminds me of another pitcher who employed all of sorts of similar whirlings and convulsions, and a disconcerting habit of looking sky-ward just before releasing the ball towards home plate, Fernando Valenzuela, who also had a good deal of success in distracting batters while pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers and other clubs.

Right about now you might be thinking to yourself, “But, Average Joe, what does this have to do with anything? Why, Joe, have you gone off on this wild baseball tangent? I hate baseball.” Fair enough, reader—but stay with me, please.

The interminable primary process for the Democrats has come to an end, with Mr. Obama having secured enough delegates to capture the nomination of his party. The various caucuses and primary elections are now over; the convention draws nigh, the so-called “super-delegates” have more or less been forced into making a choice, and at long last, perhaps, the Clintons can be put to rest (in a political sense, of course). The Democratic squabbling, tales of disenfranchisement in Florida and other places in the political hinterlands, irrelevant squawkings about the importance of the “popular vote” in a primary system that doesn’t depend on the popular vote, and their internecine warfare, internal race-baiting, whining about “misogyny” and media “unfairness,” have all amounted to Luis Tiant and Fernando Valenzuela in their pre-pitch machinations—that is, they have distracted us, as hitters, from keeping our eye on the ball that is going to be thrown at us.

If we continue to be distracted by the superfluous flappings and dis-rhythmic whoop-de-doos of the Democrats and Mr. Obama, with his fine and nuanced rhetorical flourishes, mis-remembered family stories and historical “facts,” the endlessly repeated empty chants for “change” and other mumbo-jumbo, we’ll miss the one that’s being flung in the direction of our collective skulls, the mother of all high hard ones, the hottest heater ever in the history of heaters and chin-music—a world with mad-dog Islamic terrorists armed with nuclear weapons supplied by the Iranians or the North Koreans or whomever. Everything else is a far-distant second place to keeping our eye on THAT ball.

AJ

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

Music of the Day: Joe McBride, Lakewood

I see that more folks are noticing that Mr. Obama is not particularly careful with his words or facts. Despite all the claims about his prodigious rhetorical prowess and his ability to be “articulate,” Mr. Obama seems lately to be unable to utter much without exposing his shoddy thinking, historical ignorance, and a weaseling and waffling demeanor.

By the way, when did it become acceptable again to describe a Black man as “articulate?” I thought doing so was a form of racism and condescension?

Some Reps, especially on talk radio, still in love with the sound of their own voices, continue to call for strict ideological purity (a concept which I thought had been wholly discredited by its proponents and practitioners in the old Soviet Union). They are calling this “adhering to conservative principles,” but here is one of my favorite conservative principles—don’t let a weaseling, waffling, foreign-policy weenie like Mr. Obama take over the White House in 2009.

Wearing my “McCain 2008” t-shirt to dinner the other night was exhilarating and I noticed more than a few glances aimed in my direction; some were friendly, others not so much.

Internet radio is okay, but the signal is interrupted too many times for enjoyable listening. Wireless is great when it works.

A young man I hired six years ago to teach history at my last school was recently given an award for being the most outstanding teacher at the school. He thanked me for providing mentoring and support and a professional example from which he learned much—that was nice of him to say, but he’s gotten better at teaching through continued study, hard work, meticulous preparation, and deep commitment to his students and the school.

Senator Kennedy recently underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his brain. There’s a joke there, but I won’t use it. . . .

Spring has finally arrived. Warm temperatures have finally arrived. The wind has stopped blowing 900 miles an hour. It’s not cold anymore. It’s June. It’s supposed to be warm. What took so long? Global warming?

I think it was last week that someone at the IAEA noticed that the Iranians weren’t forthcoming with information about their nuclear weapons program. There’s a joke there, but I won’t use it because it’s not funny—it’s just a little frightening.

AJ

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

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.