I put my latest chapter of the espionage novel called "Closer to God," on the other blogsite I maintain: http://www.from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com, simply because some people have complained when I have put fiction on this site. Not that anybody seems to be reading much on the Obama site anymore. I never get comments at all. You could say that maybe my writing is just not good enough to elicit commentary, but I don't think that is it. The grassroots wonder of what was established by the initiation and continuation of this site before and right after the last election was quite something, and great fun to be a part of. But our population loses direction easily. Our culture bores even more easily. And being fickle today, at home and abroad, defines most Americans and most American policy.
We are making believe our money is worth something, and it is still working...marginally. We are making believe that there are actually jobs to perform in this country, instead of in China, India and Indonesia...where we sent them. Friedman stated, last week in the NY Times, that the fault for that is simply that Americans did not properly prepare and educate ourselves for the future, when they had the chance. The man is a liar and low-life cur, making millions while he laughs about why American's should quite justifiably be paid the same as Chinese peasants. And he golfs with the president, when he should more properly be water-tortured in Gitmo. But there is no real justice in the universe. There is only the eternal movement of information packets. Quantum mechanics. And there is no mercy, consideration, or even intellect at work in quantum activity. We are the merciful, the considerate and the intelligent part of this universe...when we choose to be. Right now, in this period of time, we are choosing to be dumb as hell, and reaping the benefits of that stupidity.
We are so busy admiring, and holding up to high exaltation, the phony 'stars' of our world, that our world is falling apart around us. In the Chicago Tribune, yesterday, the headline was all about people (including families, women and children) living in storage lockers, garden sheds and abandoned cars. The tragedy of it. Above that headline was a four inch column across the page, with a photo of a fifteen million dollar a year baseball player smiling out at us. The Sports section took that photo and made it the size of the whole page. How many people got the subtle distinction of the idiocy illustrated by that presentation? I wonder. Bret Favre is actually given tons of sympathy as he awaits the big Packers/Viking game on Sunday. Sympathy? How many million is he getting to play for two hours? I love his interviews, however. The man is a drooling idiot when it comes to discussing anything other than his 'game.' Its pretty funny, at least.
We are still in Afghanistan. We are fighting the Taliban. We are at war with the Taliban. What the hell happened to declarations of war and Congressional approval? Gone. We now go to war at a whim, or the opinion of a president. We actually are dumb enough to say that we are depending on our generals in the war theater to tell us whether we should increase or decrease our presence in the war! Now that is as dumb as asking Bret Favre! What general in his right mind is going to say "Oh, cut my troops in half please!!" What do generals do? They make war. How do they get advancement and more power? They make war. And they do it like Bret Favre, by being exposed to about as much danger as a taxi driver or deliveryman. Others are fighting and dying, or coming home with PTSD so bad they will never have any bliss in their lives. We are torturing the wrong people. We have a whole line of bankers, generals and even sports stars whole could profit us all mightily with just a few turns of the screw.
Maybe, one day, prior to the coming disaster in 2012 (Oh please God, bring it on), the common man can celebrate the common man again. They guy or gal working to actually make cars, the people building our roads, the nurses, baristas, waiters and cooks. And those people living in storage lockers (until they are outed and thrown in the streets, because you can't be allowed to live in a storage locker!) who are somehow trying to held life together instead of becoming insurgents.
And that is what is next if we do not make some changes. We will have insurgency here in this country, and we will be no more able to stop it here than we were able to in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. We have a fiction of stopping it in Iraq, and we are going to try applying that same fiction to Afghanistan. We fortify the main population centers, then construct armored conduits to connect them, travelled by heavily armored vehicles. Then we claim that our 'surge' has worked. The natives laugh at us, as they properly should. We are not at war with Iraq or the Taliban. We are at war with our own self-imposed ignorance, and our willingness to glorify the ephemeral stupidity of stardom.
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Helium and Hydrogen are both lighter than air, which gives containers, which are small enough in mass, the ability to rise above the earth. Vacuum has this same ability, although it would be very difficult to build a vacuum container of light enough materials to be able to rise. Today, following the disaster of the hydrogen filled Hindenburg in the 30's (it burned up catastrophically), we use helium to fill some balloons for flight (it is not flammable).
Richard Heene used helium to fill his small weather balloon the other day. Somehow, the small balloon became untethered and flew away. The rest of the story is now becoming history. But it is more a history of what is happening to our current media than it is about balloons, or even the rather 'different' Heene family.
The balloon was so small it could never have provided the lift necessary to carry a passenger, even one as small as a six year old child. But the media ignored that fact. Falcon Heene, the child in question, found a place to hide following his involvement with the untethering of his father's weather balloon. The child's disappearance, at the same time that the balloon was running free, was all that was needed for the national media to spring into action. The child's potential participation in the balloon's flight, as a passenger, was trotted out as being the 'story.' No investigative reporting was done at all. The National Guard was called in. Helicopters were dispatched. Wolf Blitzer was alerted. And across the United States television sets were isolated to this 'late breaking news story,' while cameras followed the balloon's uncontrolled floating with attentive abandon. When the balloon finally landed, in full view of every television watcher in the nation, the authorities at the scene did not even examine it for the possibility of its having a passenger aboard. They already knew that there was no one aboard. But Blitzer, and company, went on and on. Since the child was not aboard the craft (which could never have carried him) then it was speculated that the 'basket' which must have been attached to the thing, had somehow dropped off, with the boy inside it. The story raged on for hours, as hypothetical searchers combed hypothetical woodlands and housing developments for the non-existant basket and boy. Late in the day the boy was found to be at home, hiding from the potential wrath of his father, for letting the expensive balloon go in the first place.
The news lemmings gathered off-camera. Wolf and his team at CNN. The saga of the deliberate scamming Heene family was born. The family had been on 'Wife Swap,' and was therefore very knowledgeable when it came to dealing with the media. The Falcon child's name was changed to 'Balloon Boy,' and the attacks began. The Falcon child made as light verbal slip-up by stating, on camera; "They are making it sound like we did this all for show." The every brilliant Blitzer, male Lois Lane of our time, managed to clip the sentence in half, and followed up: "What do you mean by the statement 'we did this for show?'" The child did not answer. That Wolf had cut off the first part of the quote blew right by the rest of the media. The part excised by Wolf became the quote itself, in typical media tradition. That part of the quote is isolated and delivered as the entire quote on The Drudge Report and CNN's home internet site right this minute. That the first part of the actual quote changes the meaning of the sentence entirely is overlooked, not to mention the boy's very accurate observation and portrayal of what the media is up to.
The rather adventurous life the Heene is having has been taken apart by this same media. What a wonderful family the Heene family seems, if you look at it from the perspective of being a child. The children have a loving brilliant father and caring mother. The children go on all sorts of adventures. They are having the time of their lives and being cared for as well. What child would not want to be a part of that family? But the media is changing the adventure into danger. And the Heene parents are being portrayed as whacked-out hippy losers putting their children in danger. That the family is trying to make it, using 'branding,' YouTube, and all the instruments necessary to get noticed in this culture, is being turned against them.
The media created a huge story out of nothing at all. A helium balloon that had flown free. That was all that happened. By the time that media got done with it, and realizing that they might be held accountable for blowing the whole thing way out of proportion, Wolf Blitzer, and company, turned on the Heene family and decided to portray them as attention grabbing scammers. This is what is happening because of media.
It is happening every day. We are being given unimportant idiocy to consider. We are being given celebrity after celebrity across our television screens. We are being kept from substance and reality by creative lying and obfuscation, and its being done to us on purpose.
On page one of the business section of today's New York Times, half way down, you will find an article titled "Bill Shields Most Banks From Review." The House Financial Services Committee approved an exemption for 8000 of our nation's 8200 banks, that will allow them to remain exempt from having to be examined for oversight by the new banking agency for oversight created by the same bill! That article is buried in the business section of the paper. The front page of the Times today? Yes, you guessed it, the 'Balloon Boy' story is page one! How could the awful outrage of all those banks being exempted from oversight, after what we have all experienced happening in that industry recently, be allowed to happen? How is it that the public is not outraged, protesting and even rioting? it is because the public does not know. The New York Times has only about a million readers, even if the banking story ran on page one it would get little notice. Wolf Blitzer does not care what happens to us, and neither does CNN. They are making millions on 'Balloon Boy' stories, then blaming the idiocy of those stories on anyone who happens to be handy. Vulnerable and handy is even better.
These bankers, with their media cronies, are a long way from being done with us. We are not being bled by the financial services industry to the point where we will be weak and careening. We are already that. No, we are being bled until we are, quite literally, dead. And we are going to go to our grave willingly, trying to catch a last glimpse of some runaway helium balloon....
What is happening with our economy is almost wholly the fault of our banking establishment. Yes, there are other factors which have made a tremendous impact; outsourcing jobs and factories, insourcing labor that sends most of its money elsewhere, inattention to long range projects in the areas of space and science, but the major blame for this continuing debacle rests with our system of banking. I say system because, as with our energy related industries, the banks have slowly pulled everything together into a net of monopoly. Interest rates are basically the same no matter what bank you go to. Fees are the same. Charges are the same. And local service, just as we saw happen in the filling station part of the energy monopoly, has all but dried up. No local bank manager will confess to any fault at all. All decisions are made by some obscure unreachable home office committee. How convenient. How deliberately convenient.
There are some things that Americans do not really understand about this banking system which has developed. The most important fact that blows right by almost all of us is that banks are constantly doing business with one another. The flow. When you sell a house, for example, and get the money from the sale, you get it from one bank and it goes right into another bank. You do not keep the cash. In fact, you are told that it is foolish to cash the check and keep the money yourself at home. Security is mentioned, along with not making any money on your money. You get your paycheck and cash it. But you don't cash it. You put it into another bank. Once you begin to understand this 'flow' of money among all the banks some things begin to stick out. One of them is about that cash. My father, who is wealthy, went into his little Wisconsin bank, where he has been a major depositor for many many years, and asked to withdraw fifty thousand dollars in cash from his checking account (balance; several hundred thousand). He wanted to withdraw cash because I told him (brashly) that they wouldn't give it to him. He got scared, so he went in. Being my Dad, he also wanted to prove me wrong.
He came out of that bank a different man. The bank promised to give him the cash within five days. They indicated that they were just too small to keep that kind of cash on hand. Since I had told my Dad that that is what the banker would say, he went right at the man. To no avail. You see, I had told my Dad that the man would lie. Of course the bank had fifty thousand dollars in cash on hand, at the very least. But they would not give it to a depositor because they didn't have to, and also because they wanted to buffer such decisions with time. Also, Dad was shocked to have the banker ask him what he wanted the money for. I had predicted that question, as well. Dad got his money the next day. He phoned me about what had happened, which surprised me, but Dad was that scared. I had him go to the bank's main branch, walk up to the Chief Executive Banker and threaten to buy the bank (he has that kind of money), and then fire each and every member of management. They gave him his cash. If you don't believe this story, go to your own branch and ask for a lot of cash!
Since the banks are just flowing the money around and around, from one bank to another, there does not have to be money. Only small amounts of the real stuff are necessary to meet demands like my Dad's. The rest of the 'money' is all paper promises. And that has helped lead us into this nightmare. Once we left the gold standard in 1971 (under that cretin Nixon) the paper promises made by the banks did not have to be backed by anything other than their word. And we have recently (again!) discovered just how worthless the word of bankers can be.
Bankers are supposed to make money by taking in deposits, accounting for them, and then loaning out the deposited money at a higher rate of return (saving account deposit pays about 2% today, while home loans run about 6%, and a car loans about 8%). Not much difference between returns on deposited money and loaned out money today. And that is a tip-off as to how banks are really making their money. They are making money from charges and fees. Overdraft charges run about 35.00 per overdraft. And the invention of the ATM card has changed everything. We used to use checks, but now checks only amount to less than ten per cent of consumer financial transactions. The banks have figured out how to manipulated ATM card balances. They credit deposits differently than withdrawals. That is their major tool. If they can get your balance down below the level of an ATM charge, which they go ahead and allow you to make even though their system tells them that you don't have sufficient money in the bank to cover the charge, then they can hit you for 35.00 bucks. If you are at the shopping center, using your card, and the card keeps working, you can see where one day's use might land you. You use the card five or six times, charge less than a hundred bucks, but get hit with hundreds of dollars worth of 'overdraft' charges. Clever. You see, the check you had deposited to cover all this, which you assumed was in the account because (after all) your card worked fine, was not to be credited until the next day. Very clever and very deliberate action on the part of your wonderful home grown bank.
And it goes on and on. The banks own the credit card companies. They have those companies (all based in the Dakotas where the laws are written to keep cardholders from having any chance of winning a court case) that send out the credit card bill timed perfectly so that when you get and pay the bill, even if you pay it the day you get it, your payment is received late. Then you get hit with another 35 buck charge, plus they can retroactively raise the interest rate on your entire balance by ten percent or so, and then raise it on other cards not even associated with the card you paid 'late' on! Forget about the heinous usury charges of PayDay loan places. Your very own bank can charge you a thousand percent, and get away with it, without even the smallest of consumer complaints.
Are you getting it yet? This outright, and quite legal, theft perpetrated by our Dr. Jekyll seeming 'good old boy' bankers is so outrageous that the networks and cable television will not even entertain discussing it. The media is not afraid of riots or the shredding of bank executive lives. Nope. The networks and cable television broadcasters are owned by the same bank system, in different variations, that is screwing the public to death.
How about this new set of banking regulations which the Federal Reserve is right now undertaking, in order to prevent another 'meltdown,' as we supposedly saw a year ago? Front page of the New York Times on Saturday. Upper right column. Go back and read it. Whatever regulations they enact will remain confidential, in order to guard the privacy of the banking system, and whatever supervision of the new regulations, should their be any, will be confidential as well. How does stuff like that make it into a major news publication and raise no ire? No marching on Washington. Nobody at all, except me, crying into this cold harsh night? Krugman, on this very day, did attack the banks, but made certain he would not discuss any of this. He went after the fact that banking executives have not curtailed their practice of paying each other great bonus amounts for short term gains, and then doing nothing when those gains prove to be illusory over time. Krugman, who knows this stuff well, was too cowardly to mention the 'elephant in the living room' part of those short term gain bonuses. And that is this; the bonus money is generated from short term gains that are not real. They are lies on paper, generated for the single purpose of paying out a huge bonus to the thieves that came up with the paper. We have all watched this happen. It has been right out in front of us, time after time. No banking executives have gone to court, trial or prison. You see, it is not illegal. When Bernie Madof was originally cornered he said something very valid: "We are all Ponzi Schemer's in the financial system now." He was right. However, if you have a bank as your cover, then Ponzi Schemes are quite legal. And confidential, as well.
I encourage you to go to your local bank branch and tell anything of this article to that man or woman running the branch. It is probably very close to being the last time you will be able to do it. Pretty soon that person will not speak the language very well anymore (remember the gas stations that used to be?), and gradually (as with credit card acceptance by filling station machines) there will be no need to have anybody at branches for you to say anything to anymore. The guys who wrote the screenplay for the move "The Matrix" were dead-on.
I don't bother with Matt Drudge much. I look at his work like I look at that of Ann Coulter, Charles Krauthammer, or even that Beck fella over on Fox. After watching the Coulter/Maher special a few weeks back, I have a better understanding of these media icons. And phonies. On the Maher special, he and Coulter commiserated with one another about how they really did not believe much in anything of what they presented. In spite of my mileage, I was a bit shocked. These people are all carrion feeders. The more outrageous they can make their message, the more attention they get, and therefore the more money they make. That they are helping our culture slip right into the morass is besides the point to them. They have truly allowed themselves, or quite possibly formed themselves, into cultural slime.
Matt Drudge ran a headline this day that was an outrage. The headline to his online rag was "Michelle Obama wears Bondage Belt." You see, Michelle, our First Lady, wore a slotted black leather belt she had just acquired. A follow on article to the Bondage crap was about how big a carbon footprint her recent purchases left behind her. Yes, this is a Republican piece of garbage online newspaper that is holding the President's wife up as an abuser of the economy, not to mention associated with certain sexual deviants of the social order.
What can be said of such things? Can you imagine the goose-stepping clowns of the Bush administration standing for such treatment of the former First Lady? As much as she resembled a female version of Gumby, nobody commented. Certainly nothing was said that associated that woman with any sexual performance...whatever. But then, maybe it is repressed sexuality that drives the Republican Party political machine. Certainly it cannot be a dedicated plan to return this country to economic sanity. That is not in their 'carbon foot-printed' game plan.
Jimmy Carter comes out and indicates that a lot of nasty criticism of Obama is because he is Black. And the Republicans deny that, of course. Prejudice is never delivered straight across the table. It is always cloaked. I met a young soldier in Hawaii who referred to President Obama as President Osama. I let it go twice. The third time, I counseled with him. I told him that I was entitled to say such a thing, as a private citizen, but he was not. The President is his Commander in Chief. I offered to allow him to remain in the Army if he would mend his ways. He accepted, of course, as I was not kidding and he somehow knew that (his wife was there, right next to him at the bar, and elbowing the hell out of him). Once he accepted my kind offer to remain an E-4 I asked him where he was from...already having guessed the answer. He was from South Carolina. I confronted him about the possibility that his negative view of President Obama was because of race. He denied that, so I asked him what preferable job a man like Obama might be allowed to hold if he was not the president. He gave himself away with his answer: "If that man wasn't president he'd be unemployed, living off his wife or the state, like the rest of them."
I had no answer for that. I cannot transplant spines into men who lack them. I cannot inject brains into craniums that were birthed without them. And I cannot do anything with an E-4 lout raised in the refined prejudice still found all over the American South.
Hell, I am mad at Obama too. We are still in Iraq. We are still in Afghanistan. We are renewing the rotten Patriot Act Provisions which stole our freedoms. We are not going after the torturers. We are not throwing that admitted felon Dick Cheney into any kind of prison. And we are all caught up about the issue of healthcare, a problem that rises only to the trillion dollar level, when we have a forty trillion dollar economic mess taking aim at the country like the dead black bores of a twelve gauge shotgun. And Obama is leading the cheer that we are past that problem. Poppycock.
But Obama is all we've got. He is bright. He is smooth. He is cool as a cucumber. Will he buck the horrid system that has built up since the end of WWII? Will he exercise intellect and heart in his decisions? Will he pull us back from the edge of this ever-approaching cliff, or merely guide us gently over that edge?
I don't know, but I do know that Matt Drudge is a low life classless cretin and deserves to be poor in this oppressively harsh capitalistic heaven we call home. Michelle does not deserve Drudge and neither do we, unless one particular part of him is to be served up on a platter.
If you were to attend Explosive Ordinance Disposal School you would find out a lot of strange stuff about explosives. If you studied these substances long enough you would come to find that the effects they create are not dissimilar from the effects created in our social order. For example, and as to their very nature, explosives don't really 'explode,' as we seem to observe. A high yield explosive (or low yield, for that matter) is just a fire. A really fast fire. At EOD school they drive this into the students using graphic demonstrations. The demonstration for the 'fast fire' nature of explosives was as follows: They took five miles of detonation cord (a think rope-looking cord of explosives) and ran it back and forth in front of a set of raised stadium seats. The switchbacks of cord went on and on, back and forth, mere inches apart. When they were done, they put all of us students in the bleachers, then hooked up some sort of electrical detonator to one end of the five mile cord. You see, Det Cord, as it is called, burns at about 18,000 feet per second, which is pretty fast. Five miles of it laid out like that, when detonated, took all of a second-and-a-half to 'explode.' You got to see the 'explosion' start at one end of the cord and then run back and forth all the way to the other end in just under two seconds.. Impressive. Explosives are really fast fires indeed.
Why do I mention this. Our media works the same way. They out there, attempting to start really large fires, all the time. And, like explosives, they have, at the basis of their nature, a lie. Look at the latest potential explosion, with respect to the Pan Am plane that went down from a bomb in Scotland years ago. The only convicted guy to be caught for that was just released in Libya. He received a 'hero's welcome' the media is reporting, with plenty of on location video. The lie is that the media is saying: "Rage and outrage continues to grow over the release of this prisoner, all over Western Civilization." The media is initiating and building that very 'rage' they claim to be only reporting. They are trying to ignite an explosion by igniting one end of the social 'Det Cord.'
And then there is another interesting result when dealing with explosives. It is called sympathetic detonation. When you set a large main charge of explosives you set a small little piece of more volatile explosive next to it. That is called the supplementary charge. Then you set your fuze cord to the supplementary charge. When you pull the fuze igniter the supplementary charge is eventually ignited. That sets off the main charge. The main charge acts in 'sympathy' with the little one.
Our media is doing this all the time. They bring their equipment and attach themselves to what they hope will be a main charge. Then they do an initial report, attempting to instill and build up as much emotion as they possibly can. That is their supplementary charge. After they set this supplementary charge off they call in to their headquarters to gauge the effect. It appears that the Scotland crash is not going to explode in any kind of giant fireball, from their efforts. It appears that health care in America has gone off like a two thousand pounder, however. For that one, national health care, they went around the nation attaching their little supplementary charges to open forum meetings. They got some great explosions. And the main charge may eventually mean that we have to continue with this corrupt and unfair health system we have.
All the explosions the media eventually manages to detonate are bad, by the way. Notice that? Why? Why do only twenty percent of Americans understand that, by population, crime is forty percent less than it was fifteen years ago (the public thinks crime is UP!!)? Why does the public have no clue that the real expenses of medical care are not due entirely to insurance or the lack of it, but certainly due to the skyrocketing prices being charged (up 20% per year!) by your kindly loving doctor, his team, the hospitals and the drug companies? How did the public come to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? How did they come to believe that somehow, through the wildest screwy logic, we are properly at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan? Our country believes in crap and drivel because that is what it has placed in front of it every day of its life now.
Our press is all about bad news. Watch the ten O'clock news tonight. In fact, any night. You will see the lead story (unless Mike Jackson rises from the dead) will be about a local murder. The follow-up will be too, unless there is a notable robbery. Prices and taxes will be up and hopelessly headed ever higher on your news. Politicians of all sorts will also be committing all sorts of theft and adultury, as well.
As long as we are going to compensate the media for telling us the most lurid, horrid and graphically nauseating stuff, they are going to continue to 'report' that to us. They are not going to go out and set their little supplementary charges next to some guy feeding the homeless (for which, in seven states he will be incarcerated for), or being successful in a new business, or even trying out his latest invention. Every once and awhile we get to hear and see about such things. You will note that any such report of wonderful good news is given to us for maybe a twenty second sound byte, now and then (rarely!).
This whole thing will kill us, unless either God steps in or we receive the greatest of good fortune. During the cold war the media set their little supplementary charges right next to some nuclear weapons (which are the mainest of main charges in anyone's book!). The media, in cahoots with our military industrial complex, almost had us in a nuclear war (three times, at least). Only later, when the Soviet Union fell apart, did we discover that the Soviets never had any, read that again, any, intention of launching missiles at us or dropping bombs upon us. And they never had anything like our technology in any area to do it with. The media, for the most part, knew that.
There is no money in good news. Unfortunately, we have discovered only recently, and due to this same toxic explosive media, that societies like to see and hear the bad news every day. For some reason, it makes us feel better about our own situation and life. If things are so bad 'out there' in other people's lives then they don't seem quite so bad in our life or in our backyard.
Do we have it in us to stop this media we have empowered? Do we want to? Or do we just wait, until one of these supplementary charges is attached to a main charge we cannot stop or control? We are playing with fire. Really fast fire.
It was a common day. The Republicans gathered at community get-togethers to make sure everyone does not have a fair shake in this culture. Right now it is all about medical care. Like a country so rich and powerful that it can conduct two full scale wars at the same time while still bailing out some truly evil investment firms to the tune of seven trillion dollars cannot take care of the health of its citizenry. Please! And, oh yeah, lets get to those wild community sharing events armed to the teeth, as if there is anybody attending them that is dangerous or deranged, except for the armed idiots. But that just made it an average day in my Republic. Bret Favre continues to add his aging zest to the weirdness of professional football (he didn’t want to go to training camp, he’s too important for that kids stuff, so he waited til it was over to sign with Minnesota). Average stuff. The wind blows, the grass grows and the sun shines.
But I went to see the Julia Child movie. And I was quite surprised. I am in the entertainment business but had not been to a real theater for a few years. The first ten minutes was all ads. Bad, loud, blaring and rotten television ads transplanted into the theater. You cannot mute them, turn down the sound or anything. I looked around to see if anybody else was mildly disturbed, but nobody was. I realized that I was the only one who was out of sync. No wonder movie attendance is down. And then there was the other new thing, at least at the theater I went to, where the ticket has to be purchased from the same person who gets cokes and drinks, or whatever. You wait forever, just to get in. Which I almost did not, simply because of that. Movies are not dying, they are being killed off by idiotic businessmen who have no clue about humanity.
The movie itself was one neatly wrapped and pleasing chick-flick. Most of the chick-flick part was illustrated by the just wonderful men in the show. The husbands were all true, loving and totally supporting, no matter what. If there was a problem, well, it was resolved in no time at all. No drugs, no booze problems, other women or any of that. Nice and comforting, if not a long long way from any reality. I liked the blogging part of the movie. Of course, our heroine (not Julia, but the other one named Julie) rises in mere days to have hundreds of thousand of followers on Salon.com with her blog. Now that part was totally hilarious (most of the millions of blogs out here have less than five followers!), but it was passed off pleasingly enough. There were some really good shots at the publishing business. Those people, back in Julia’s time and in our’s, will steal the fillings out of your teeth, given any opportunity or sometimes simply out of some deeply driven need to torment. I liked those parts. A little truth in the vanilla pudding which swirled around most of the rest of the feature. But I liked it anyway. I laughed and loved Julia Child (in this case Meryl Streep, who I love almost as much) all over again.
I liked Julie’s blogs because they, the one’s they created for the movie anyway, were so nice and emotive. I don’t think I am capable of that kind of lightness of being. The blogs of that young woman were of gossamer cotton candy while mine are laden with acid and razor blades. But what can I do? Proceed on, hoping that I will be discovered too. That last sentence was a joke, as I have been discovered, and its not all so very good (I am missing some fillings).
http://www.jamesstrauss.com
Prologue
Joshua Boatwright sat patiently, sipping from his small espresso cup, unsure of how he had come to be where he was, tucked into the back corner lobby of the Sheraton hotel in Crystal City. He looked out a floor-to-ceiling window onto a well kept courtyard. No, it was not his place to be there. Analysis was what he did, not personal liaisons. His calling in life was to assemble the smallest shards of data and form sweeping mosaics of truth, in a world filled with lies. Joshua was proud of his nickname, "Tevie," a shortened version of the motto he lived by. "Triple Verfification" was that motto. Three sources to establish the veracity of each shard of data he added to his mosaics, to produce pictures of sanity in an insane world. His team of analysts, located four miles away, at CIA's Langley complex, had not conferred the nickname because of his work, however. Unknown to Joshua, they had given him the name because of their knowledge of his only recreation, which was watching television non-stop when not at the intelligence facility.
Diminutive and fidgeting, he sipped and fretted over the tops of his prescription glasses. They had jet black frames, for affect. He did not need them to read or drive. But they gave him a distinguished look, or so his ex-wife had told him, and they did help when examining the tiniest detail of photo intelligence. The Agency's electronic surveillance, although not legally allowable for personal use, such as tracking one's spouse, had proven ruthlessly effective, just after she'd commented on his spectacles.
A big man entered the lobby near its grand entrance. He wore an expensive blue suit. Its Italian cut did nothing, however, to disguise his morbid obesity. Joshua flicked his eyes towards the man, then grimaced. The man's florid complexion, bulbous nose and polished smile gave his identity away. The Senior Senator from Iowa stopped in the center of the large foyer, to take the place in. No assistants or attendants of any sort accompanied him, which did not surprise Joshua at all. The Senator noticed him sitting alone in the corner. Joshua glanced at him before looking down at a folder he had placed very exactly on his table. Noticing a slight tremor pass through his left wrist, he quickly tucked it down between his thigh and the arm of the chair. Never had he encountered anyone as an Agency representative, and certainly never a sitting senator, much less one who chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"There's no shame to having a little bit of fear here," he whispered inaudibly to himself, breathing deeply inward as he heard the powerful senator's approaching footsteps. Joshua squared his shoulders imperceptibly, his back ramrod straight. He had the weight and reputation of the entire Central Intelligence Agency behind him. He would neither genuflect nor grovel before anyone.
"You'd be their man?" the senator inquired very calmly, stopping astride Joshua's chair. Joshua started to rise and raise his right hand. He quickly caught himself, however, putting it down and reseating himself. He was not there, at a clandestine meeting, to be social, or to even appear social.
"Stay seated," the senator said, paternalistically, his voice soft and silky. He lowered himself with visible difficulty into the narrow chair Joshua had purposely placed at right angles to his own before a low coffee table.
"Got something for me?" the senator asked into the silence between them. His tone this time flavored with a likability that the analyst instantly hated.
Before any reply could be made, the senator picked up an unmarked but highly classified file Joshua had placed on the table. Neither man said anything while he read its contents. Joshua noted that the lobby was completely empty, save for two clerks working registration near the entrance. The waiter, who had brought his expresso to him had never returned. Joshua hoped he wouldn't, for fear of having to touch the cup and allow the senator to see him shaking. Minutes passed. A bead of perspiration ran down his hairline behind his right ear. Fortunately, it was the ear opposite the senator's position.
"Says here that you boys are gonna go ahead and help me out," the big man in the blue suit intoned, before plopping the file back on the table.
"The usual Agency drivel," the senator commented, acidly.
"You gonna tell me what the plan is?" he inquired.
Joshua cleared his throat to steady himself, then followed his instructions.
"Your nephew is being justifiably imprisoned by a foreign government. His violations, meriting that imprisonment, are in keeping with what we normally associate with serious criminal behavior in our own country. The Agency does not normally involve itself in such matters, particularly where such deviant and anti-social behavior is involved." Joshua halted, having delivered his own righteous version of the background information he had been given during his briefing. After a few seconds of silence he realized that something was amiss. Without looking over, he felt the heat of tremendous anger flow toward him from the direction of the senator's chair. Instinctively, he dropped his left shoulder a millimeter or two in defense, before he caught himself.
"Just cut to the chase son. Don't make me come after your career." The senator's threat was issued in a low tone, more akin to that of an oversized cat purring than of a human voice. Joshua's throat froze, a tendril of fear coursing through him at the mention of his career. He finally cleared it by swallowing several times.
"We're sending our best man," Joshua gasped. "He's resourceful, violently equipped and experienced. No expense will be spared in this operation. But we're sending him in alone. We can't afford, no matter what measures you may or may not take, to have this operation rise to the level of an international incident. Not now." Joshua averted his gaze from the direction of the man from Capitol Hill as he finished his memorized message. He waited for a response, again trying to fathom why he had been selected for the role he was playing. He was in the dark, but Joshua sensed the reason. It was about the fact that his analysis group had provided the data which sanctioned the mess-of-a-mission the so-called 'best man' had pulled off, against all odds.
He heard the senator arise from his chair. He looked up, but the man was already walking away, his manufactured smile once more plastered to his politician's face. He had made no comment at all, not even in dismissal.
Joshua's shoulders pressed inward, and his head sank to the point that his jaw nearly touched his chest. His trembling fingers grasped the espresso cup handle. He took a shaky sip. He thought of the 'best man' the Agency was dispatching, then smiled weakly for the first time that day. That 'best man' had just come out of West Africa under the bloodiest of circumstances, having improbably accomplished his mission. The skewed manner in which his mission had been conducted would no doubt have the Agency looking like a stone cold, heartless and uncaring beast, and no one in analysis was taking that lightly. His grip steadied as he pondered over what he'd just done. He'd sent a low-life field agent off to save a drug-dealing nephew of a corrupt scumbag senator. This time not the remotest possibility of the mission's success existed.
Joshua Boatwright stood up straight, tucked the classified folder under his arm and strode across the lobby. His mind was already lost in formulation of the final mosaic, as it would appear, when the details of an illegal and doomed mission crossed his desk.
A few days ago the media was reporting in the news that our forces in Afghanistan had killed a Taliban leader by the name of Mehsud. The reports came with detailed descriptions of the actual terminal event. It seems that Mehsud was spotted on the top of a home, sitting next to his second wife, by one of our Predators, Reapers or White Doves. That last designation is my term for these robotic flyers who fire missiles from beneath their wings. Missiles were launched and the house, with Mehsud and wife, was obliterated.
Are we at war with the Taliban? I thought that we were at war with Al Qaeda. I thought that we went into Afghanistan to get the Al Qaeda cells who had launched 9/11, and, in particular, the cell which contained Osama Ben Ladin. I thought that we fought the elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan to get them out of our way, in order to allow us to reach the followers of Al Qaeda. But then I was also led to believe that, eventually, we were fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, until we changed the name of the opponents there to "insurgents." Now I just don't know.
Let's assume that we have to be at war with the Taliban. That assumption safely put where we can get back to it, let's take a look at the morality of killing the woman that was with him. We can even marginally presume that the guy on the roof of that building (Mehsud) when the predator struck down with six missiles was the Taliban leader we sought (there are many conflicting reports about that). But I want to write about that woman. Whoever she was. Were we at war with her when we executed her with full, willing and aforeknowledged intent? Nobody seems to care about this poor woman, blown to smithereens. Why not? Why is it that we keep getting reports that our White Doves shower down these missiles on all manner of people living in Afghanistan, and it is okay that many are not combatants at all? Who will cry for this woman?
I went to a party the other night. High class party. Everyone was higher class than I. My attendance was based upon the fact that I can usually be depended upon to engage in interesting discourse. The hostess of the party, when I was at a table deep in discussion about the Iraq war, said these words: "It's a war. Kill them all. Men, women and children. That's what war is. Kill them all." I looked at her. I like her. I want to be invited back to her parties. But I could not help myself. Quite forcefully I encountered her verbally: "I can understand your feelings, but I would like you to understand that this war should then have your husband and children laying here, dead at your feet, for you to have any comprehension of the enormity of what you just said." Even the mildest intimation that violence might be considered to be visited upon her, there in her own home, stopped the place dead for a moment. I still like this woman. I know that she is so very proto-American, however. She has not lived in those cities out there, humped those jungles, slogged across those deserts and certainly not spent any time with any of those wondrous cultures out there all over this planet. Those people are not people to her. Not like her husband and children. They are not even existent enough in her consciousness to be human beings.
They are very human to me. That woman on that roof who was blown to smithereens. That woman probably had a husband and children too. Maybe the husband is dead. But the children? If they survived the huge blast are they not thinking about enrolling in flight officer training as I write this? Or will that come later? I am not sure about that, the survival part, but I am deadly certain about the 'flight school' device I use here to describe the awesome hurt and hatred which will out itself one year soon. Where do you suppose all that emotion is headed?
And now, today, we have Fox and CNN running the same video of a White Dove watching some insurgents somewhere planting a bomb on a highway. The White Dove does what American White Doves do. It blows the living crap out of the insurgent. And it is all so very justified. And it all attempts to cloak a little secret that leaked out earlier in the day. The secret that we have designated fifty drug dealers in Afghanistan to be destroyed by our White Doves, came out this morning. You see, it is the drug dealers who are the sole remaining financiers of the Taliban. This, we are told very forcefully, then shown the video of a I.E.D. placing insurgent being killed again.
And where did we get out list of Taliban-loving drug dealers? Well, from our intelligence. Which takes us right back to the Monterey language school in Monterey, California. That is the language school the military uses to train our people to speak the languages of other countries so we will understand them. Without speaking the language, and isolated in a guerilla environment, we must depend upon local translators to tell us what people are saying. And to tell us the truth about it. How many graduates of Monterey have we turned out over the past few years who speak the languages of Afghanistan? I am willing to bet that the classified number is around ten, maybe twenty. So what we end up with is intelligence based upon what the locals are telling us. Remember those clowns from Iraq who supposedly gave us all that intelligence before this latest Iraqi nightmare? They lied to us time and again, and got paid hundreds of millions for doing it. We didn't find out about the lying for quite some time though. Today, in spite of the payments and lying, the chief-liar-in-charge of that crew is the Oil Minister of the country.
So here we are, killing supposed drug dealers, from the Wings of our Snow White Doves, all over the place. Do those drug dealer's have wives and family living with them? Or traveling with them? And what is the basis for assigning someone to this terminal hit list? The word of some locals, and very probably locals who would like a bit of the power that the person they are reporting on might have. I experienced this in Vietnam, in the field as a combat commander. Only after I was in country long enough to acquire some of the local language was I able to figure out that my "Kit Carson" local scouts were lying to me. That was after, by the way, we had already 'taken out' my scout's political opponents in a nearby village. The interpreters had, of course, indicated that they were V.C. (Viet Cong enemy, for you young people).
Why are we at war with the 'insurgents' in Iraq? Why are we at war with the Taliban? Why are we now killing drug dealers without true accusation or trial? Why have we allowed our assassination teams (as reported by Hersh) to rend and kill people all over the world on the basis of information which is worse than suspect? Why, if America does not like you, do you get visited, then carried away on the wings of Snow White Dove? I damn well think so. The hostess who invited me to that party probably thinks that this result is just fine with her. And I do not expect to be invited back, no matter how witty my 'House-like' commentary might be. But I have a problem with killing people willy nilly across the face of the planet and then expecting that we are not gong to be hated, vilified, and eventually hunted down ourselves.
It is hard for a Marine to say these words: "We must retreat." But retreat we must. We need to get our head and act together again. We need to stop locking up our own homeless, believing our own lies, and blaming the world out there for the problems we have here. If we were mentally healthy, as a culture, we would merely have absorbed the hit we took on 9/11, then made sure we caught up with Osama and his small band. We'd have rebuilt the towers and thumbed our nose at Silverstein in New York, or anybody else who got in our way (but we would not have struck down upon them with one of our White Doves!). With just the two trillion the Iraq and Afghan wars have cost us, and the seven or so years we've wasted, we could have bases upon the Moon, Mars and be running back and forth almost without limit. Now how could would that have been? You think the world might just be going; "God, but those American's are something else!" instead of "Those Yanks are bunch of violent imperialist creeps." And, finally, we would not have a huge crop of our young people coming home to kill themselves, or live their lives homelessly, drunk, drug-addicted and unemployed.
They're back. Oh not those two chicks who did whatever the hell they were doing on the border of N. Korea. No, I mean Al Gore and Bill Clinton. Al arranged for the great swooping rescue by the great swooping rescuer (that would be Bill) so both of those two "whatever the hell they are now" guys are talking like crazy inside a private airline hanger to CNN and the world. Al has introduced Bill, telling us all what a heartfelt sacrificing individual the big galoot really is...to go over and save two young American women from the clutches of that horrid simian dictator. Al smiles that wonderfully vapid Gore smile (which certainly had something to do with his having his election as president stolen) and says great things about Bill. He then introduces the man, expecting, without a doubt, that the great rescuer will say great things back. And Bill does not fail in that department. With one minor exception. He says great things alright, but he says them about himself. Clinton, strange faux blue dog democrat that he is, will go down in history as the greatest credit taker of all time. Al Gore, if he could have maintained the "I'm the guy who invented the internet" phrase credibly, would have secured that title. But no. We get Bill instead. His white hair almost iridescent inside the well coifed hangar, his body thin and in good shape. Gore nearby, sweating, with used car salesman hair and the 'I really am losing weight' girth.
It was also stated, prior to the huge plane rolling in, that Bill was on a private mission (totally unsupported by the U.S. government) to save those girls. I don't know why they bother with such giant introductory lies at events like this staged Hollywood production. Look at the plane! Its a 767, flying all over the world. That alone is about a million bucks of expense. Then there is the protecting of the plane because a former president, with Secret Service protection, is aboard it. How about five million or more to make sure Bill gets to and returns from a hostile country like North Korea. Who is paying all that money? We know damn well it is not Bill or the families of those girls. You and I are paying. Once more. The girls have been 'bailed out.' Now they too can write their books. They do need to take a little time to come up with a story though. Wandering about the country side near the N. Korean border isn't really going to fly.
I am very happy to see that the democrats have done a better job of getting the news away from healthcare, however. That last story they stuck in the way worked wonderfully well, but it did carry some ugly baggage. The Gates affair. This one has more positive elan. Young beautiful ladies of asian extraction saved from the world's most notorious pint-sized dictator. What if the girls had been black? You can tell that I write for Hollywood. Black would have been over the top.
Diane Sawyer, playing her well rehearsed role as the idiot-reporting blond, had the best question though. She posed it to the television audience when the plane was very slowly and majestically rolling into the hanger: "Do you think that Bill Clinton had a chance to discuss succession with Kim Jong?" I did get a kick out of that. I can picture the meeting in my mind. The somber Bill (his affected role for the exchange) leaning to the brightly smiling Kim (his affected role for the exchange) and whispering: "...so,when you're dead, soon who's getting the nod?" I liked the mental image of that. Thank you Diane. Kim is a generous man. I know he will leave that rocky mess of a country to his son. Unlike Bill. Bill would just take it with him. And Bill is still talking as I finish writing this. Al Gore is smiling that silly smile and darting his eyes sideways, waiting for Bill to say something great about him. Bill Clinton is talking about Bill Clinton and Al Gore is waiting for somebody to say great things about Al Gore. It is indeed a wonderful life.
“USHUAIA”
El Prat was never really finished properly, following the twenty-fifth Olympiad in ninety-two. Not the last part of the last terminal, anyway, where the tattered and beaten Montenegro Airlines plane had dumped me from the flight in. Barcelona was supposed to be one grand city, but I was not going to see it, and that didn’t bother me in the least. As cold and rotten as the rain had been at Golubovci when I had shambled aboard that morning, Barcelona’s warmer overcast sky, visible just beyond the terminal windows, seemed to offer little better.
All the other passengers had filed dutifully toward baggage claim, somewhere else, probably a long ‘somewhere else’ inside the vast facility. Instead of following along I had taken a nearby seat and fallen into it. I had no baggage. No checked and no carryon. Going home in disgrace did not require luggage or belongings of any sort. Your body was required to make the journey, so you could stand and be told what a sad human being you had turned out to be, and, without it being directly said, how it was not their fault that you were such a miserable representative of species homo sapiens.
But I did have cigarettes. American, no less. The good stuff, not that cheap burning Balkan crap. If I’d had drugs…well hell, I didn’t, so, as with the remainder of my life, it didn’t much matter. The people from the plane were mostly gone. Stragglers here and there, straggling aimlessly, like so many people do at airports around the world. I observed them by habit, as I didn’t care at all about them. No players among them, I knew. Even deep covered operations specialists were not difficult to spot, if you had been in the business, and the field, for awhile. I’d been both.
9/11, back home and so many years back, had changed everything, I thought, as I began looking around for a place to smoke even the smallest part of a cigarette. Airports were hermetically sealed environments following 9/11, where smoking had gone the way of the pay phone, and the coin-metered parking out front. I watched a beautiful, but stressed out, woman head toward the opening to the washroom. Barcelona, not home, so it was one of those single unisex things I didn’t care for. Although the woman was dragging a seven or eight year old girl along with her, I mostly noticed her. Tall, elegant, and wearing a beautiful knee length black dress. I noted that she walked powerfully, moved strongly but gave the appearance of somehow being wounded at the same time. I was a predator, and she had the look of prey. I smiled, turning away. Fortunately, for both of us, I was neither a predator of women nor children. Unless it was required of the mission. And there would be no more missions.
I had a decision to make. The greatest decision of my life. The decision about my life. And I needed a cigarette to help me along. I looked back toward where the woman and her child had disappeared into the unisex bathroom opening. Just beyond that opening was a large metal door with yellow writing angled across it. Spanish was not one of my languages, not the writing of it anyway, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the message was a ‘keep out’ message. I could not see any lock on the door’s surface.
Looking around carefully first I arose from the chair and headed for the door. I took out my pack of Marlboros, to use as a cover in case I was encountered. Even so, just trying to use a door marked not to be opened might be a huge violation, not explainable by a person simply wanting to have a smoke.
“Screw it, like it makes any difference at all,” I said to myself in disgust, pushing down on the European-style door lever. I pulled. No alarm. I opened it all the way, stepped into another world, and looked around in surprise. I gently closed the door behind me, leaning down to make sure that there was no hidden device or lock along the height and depth of its edge. I took out a Marlboro and lit it. I leaned against the hard concrete wall opposite the door. I suddenly realized what I was in. I was in a long walled off corridor open to the sky. At one time the corridor must have led somewhere, but the vagaries of construction , and probably security, had caused both ends to be walled off. I looked up at the gray sky. The walls had to be over thirty feet high.
I heard the sound of deep sobbing. I walked a short distance down the long enclosed length of the concrete box. The sound was coming from a vent just above my head, as I stopped. I blew out a great puff of smoke and watched it swirl right into the vent. A child coughed lightly from inside the vent. The vent led into the bathroom I concluded. The woman was sobbing, with her child nearby.
“What are we doing, Mom?” I heard the child say. I listened intently. After a moment of more quiet sobbing, there was silence. Then the woman spoke in a whisper loud enough for me to hear.
“Get on your knees. We’re going to pray to God. We‘ve been deserted hereand have no money. If the authorities take us in it won’t be long before they have us back in that horrid country with those horrid people.”
The accent was American I concluded. The world was a hard place. I imagined one of the countries the woman must be talking about. Saudi, Iran, Jordon. Cultures that were implacable, with respect to their women and children. Rendition had been invented by them, and the Israelis, not by Americans. To be on the run from one of those countries was to be in terrible jeopardy. I drew in more smoke, then watched it snake back into the vent. I heard no more coughing. Instead I heard praying.
“Please Lord,” the woman intoned, followed by the little voice of her child, repeating the same words. “We are in deep trouble. Please send someone to help us. Anyone. We can’t make it on our own.” I heard all the words twice, but it was the little girl’s that went in toward what was left of my soul. Then I shook my head, threw the cigarette down and ground it out with my foot. It was a cold cruel world.It took its toll on all of us and I had my own problems. I tip-toe'd to the door, opened it noiselessly, then slipped back into the real world again. I moved away quickly, until I was well down the terminal corridor.
It seemed like a half-mile walk to the main building where the counters were located. I had an electronic connecting ticket to Washington but I had already made my decision about that. I wasn’t going back there, so I needed a ticket. I picked the United line, as it was fairly short and my original connect had been on it. Maybe they had a flight to South America that did not connect in the United States.
I felt someone behind me, but then, I was in line at an airline counter. Instinctively, I glanced back anyway. I almost groaned aloud. It was the elegant broken-down woman and her child. I quickly turned my head, but not quickly enough. The little girl spoke up at me.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” I grimaced down at her, in question.
“Huh?” I said, intelligently.
“You smell like him," she went on. I stared, having nothing to say to such a comment.
I looked at the woman, but her attention was on everything else around. Her eyes darted all over the place, like those of a cornered animal. The girl kept staring at me, waiting for something.
“I smell?” I finally asked, against my better judgment. She nodded, knowingly.
“My Mom and I prayed for help. I smelled you when we prayed. You’re him, the one God sent.” I stared, my expression one of total disbelief. The girl had coughed at the smoke from my cigarette while in that bathroom I realized, then picked up the same aroma from my clothes. My mind raced. A lot of people smoked, especially in Europe. The girl could not possibly know that the smoke was from me personally. I started to comment, then stopped, looking into the steady deep pools of her eyes. She knew. I knew that she knew. She knew that I knew that she knew. No words needed to be said.
“Por favor?” a woman’s impatient voice said, from the side. I jerked toward the sound. I was next. The counter clerk was motioning toward me. I looked up at her, then back at the child, who smiled, her knowledge and confidence in my role total and complete.
“Jesus Christ!” I whispered bitterly, taking my wallet from my pocket, and then approaching the counter. I took out my personal Visa, the only credit care I owned myself. The Agency cards were not going to work to get me anywhere, I knew, not anymore. My last ten thousand dollars was invested in the Visa card. Or at least my only ten thousand, and it was all credit. I shrugged. What did it matter?
“Here,” I said, shoving the card across the counter, “fly these two people anywhere they want to go.” I pulled back. The woman moved to the counter.
“What?” she asked. “What’s going on? What are you doing?” The woman looked from the clerk to me, than back again. The clerk shrugged like I had, but with more meaning.
“Here, you need tickets out of here. Use my card. Take care of your child.” I said the words in embarrassment, as the woman stood staring at me in silence. I watched conflicting expression flow across her face like the surface of a river’s white water rapids.
“We needed help Mom, and God sent him,” the small girl said, in her penetrating little voice. She pointed up at my chest. I could tell that the woman did not know what to do.
“Take the tickets. Get the hell out of here,” I said sharply. The woman’s face broke, then she caught herself, thankfully stifling a sob. I stepped away, to give her room. The little girl stepped with me.
“Where are you going?” she asked me, conversationally, as if what was happening was just a normal part of her everyday life. I sighed.
“Ushuaia,” I said, thinking that that would stop her, but it didn’t.
“Ushuaia?” she intoned, getting the pronunciation all-wrong. I didn’t correct her, preferring to wait until she and her Mom were out of my life.
“Why are you going there?” the girl went on, as I wondered that she had not even asked where Ushuaia was. I answered as if she had asked.
“Its in South America, down near the tip, in a place called Terra del Fuego. There’s a bar down there I’m going to drink at. I’m done. I’m all done. “ I finished saying the last words with my eyes closed, imagining the total relief I would find down, in that weird wind-swept place, as there was just no point in living on anymore. The bar in Ushuaia was as good a place to end it all as anywhere.
“Can I draw you?” The little girl brought me back with her odd question.
“Huh?” I said, returning to my earlier intellectual response. I noted that the girl had produced a small notepad and pencil from somewhere.
“I don’t care what you do,” I answered, truthfully. I moved to the side to wait. Until I had to sign something. I did not have to wait long. The clerk gestured, the woman stood aside, and I signed the credit card slip, then some other papers. I accepted my card back, but did not put it away.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” the woman began, as I tried to shake my head and stop her. “No, without you I don’t think we would have made it," she went on, "you saved our lives and I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I don’t need any thanks, just get your child back home, or wherever you’re going.”
The woman nodded. I knew she was aware of my discomfort. She took her papers, turned, then turned back and kissed me on the cheek. She smiled for the first time, as I shrank back in surprise, bringing my hand to my cheek. The woman grabbed the little girl by one hand and made to depart. The girl pulled back.
“Wait,” she yelled, then held up the other hand to me.
I took the piece of paper she pushed at me, then watched as both she and her Mom half-walked and half-ran out into the main terminal area. I watched until they were gone.
“Por favor?” the United clerk said, once again.
“Connect me all the way through to Ushuaia, Argentina,” I said, pushing the Visa back across the counter. The woman went to work. I waited for almost ten minutes. All at once she looked up.
“The card’s no good. You don’t have enough money for that trip.”
I stared.
“What?’ was all I could say for a moment. “But I had ten thousand of credit on that card,” I said, in a shaky voice.
“Oh,” the woman said. “Now I understand. That woman and her child used up nine thousand dollars of your credit.” I stared, my eyes going round.
“Where the hell did she buy tickets to, Timbuktu?” I could not believe what I was hearing.
“Washington D.C.” the woman said, flatly.
“D.C.” I almost yelled. “It doesn’t cost that kind of money to fly from Barcelona to D.C.!” I waited for a reply, fuming.
“It does in first class. You said fly them anywhere. They were going to D.C. At the last minute and with a full plane, first class is all that was available. Do you want to fly somewhere else?” I shook my head, still in total shock. I took out my electronically issued boarding pass the Agency had assigned me. I handed it across the counter.
“Are they on that same flight?” I asked, knowing the answer. The woman checked her computer. She nodded, as I knew she would.
“Please tell me that they don’t have seats next to mine,” I murmured, all the strength of my voice gone.
“Oh no,” the woman replied, brightly. They’re in first class. You’re back in economy.” I just looked at her, slowly taking my boarding pass back. “You better hurry, you’re flight leaves in twenty minutes,” she finished.
I nodded again, saying nothing. I stepped away, hearing “por favor” behind me.
I walked numbly toward the center of the terminal. I stopped under the flight display to find my gate. I remembered the piece of paper in my hand. I unfolded it. It was a wonderful little pencil piece of some expressed talent. It was a drawing of a smiling man bending over to talk to or accept something from a female child. Under the drawing were written the words “Not Done.”
I could not help smiling to myself. I didn’t believe in God. If I did believe in God I wouldn’t have liked Him. But I walked toward the United gate smiling, with a strange new purpose in my step. I talked to Him, whom I did not believe in, while I walked. Indeed, it appeared I was not done.
copyright 2009
Everywhere I look, everything I read, and just about everything written' confirms that it is a wonderful money-saving thing that that the government has done by canceling production of the new F-22 'Raptor' fighter. I don't see it that way. It is a dumb luddite-based decision. Yes, anti-technology, head-in-the-sand, but seemingly fiscally responsible decision. In reality, it is canceling the future to make believe we are paying for the present. And the amount saved is nonsensical. We could have had the remaining raptors built and operational for years just on the money that was recently distributed to executives at the banks we gave bailout money to. So this aircraft cancellation is all about posturing.
The F-22, it is complained, was designed during the cold war. Somehow that means that the design is mired in that period of strange political unrest. That is like saying that the hammer you have in your basement workshop needs to be thrown out because it was designed at a time when most things were put together with hammer and nail, not nail guns. The F-22 is a tool. Its use capability is amazingly versatile. And God, does it send a message to the rest of the world and to the future. That message is that the United States will dominate the air in any conflict that anyone gets involved in that includes the United States. Anywhere, anytime, when fighting breaks out, you will face the Raptor in the air...and nobody, but nobody, argues that there is a plane, or mix of them, that can match that tool in the air. And oh, do you happen to recall that we have a bomber in the inventory, still very well used, called the B-52? It was designed before the cold war, then dedicated solely to that 'almost' conflict. Amazing the usage we have found for that old 'hammer!' The argument has also been raised that the F-22 costs too much in maintenance to fly. What hogwash. It costs, even at the ridiculous figures presented in the press, about eighteen times less, per plane, than a B-52 to keep in the air!
A lot of people are talking abut retreat today. A lot of people are talking about not planning for future. It seems that the discussions are all about today, even though the hard-clad, cold-bleeding Republicans have supposedly been vanquished, and not tomorrow. From the space program through weapons procurement and even scientific research, we have been in retreat from a proactive plan that takes on the future. Instead we are 'going green' and heading into some 'bong considered' idiocy of pastoral life. The idea that we are somehow going to change this planet into one vast garden of Eden-type delight would be laughable, like Creationism, if there was not a grand, vapidly drooling, segment of our culture buying into it. Our future is in technology. Technology is why you have heat in the winter and air-conditioning in the summer. It is why you can talk to one another all the time, anywhere and at anytime. It is why you have clothing and shoes, and yes, packaged and then cooked food. Technology is simply another word used to replace the word 'better.' Whenever technology is considered something bad, and not better, then you have to go to the additional word 'perspective.' Nuclear weapons are great, if you have them, but terrible if you do not. Great if you are one of the people (in the countries that do have them) who control them, and maybe not so great if you are one of the people who do not, or do not trust the people who do. It is perspective of technology.
We live in a time where people who benefit from the stunning technological gains of the last two thousand years understand, and strive to do better. And we also live in a time wherein people who do not much benefit from the advances, hate them. We have a lot of problems with negative belief systems in the underdeveloped countries of this world. We have radical religion, which, amazingly, thrives in areas where technology does not reach very well! A great advance, also part of this technology, that should be used to combat this, is education, and gifted benefits of other technology. Instead we have gone at this great rift in belief systems with more destructive technology (bombs, mines and combat planes and troops). Hammers can be used to remove nails, and take apart, as well as build.
Yet, here I am proposing that the cancellation of the F-22 raptor is a big mistake. Amazing. But the analytical points of my argument are well founded. The United States is something special. It arose from a nightmare of warring nations intent on supporting the wealth of a few and the deliberate (and forced) slavery of the masses (physical and economical). The United States has pulled itself through and up above that, dragging much of the world with it! And here we sit. "Top of the World, Ma!" A line from an old Jimmy Cagney movie. We are on top of the world and we are having a terrible time figuring out what to do with the position we are in, for ourselves and for everyone else. And, in truth, since the cold war, we have been acting like a horse's ass, to our own people, for the most part, and the people of the world. We have to change all that, for our own survival and for that of the world itself. But we cannot change it from a position of weakness.
We need a six hundred ship Navy. We need a strong well-equipped Army and Marine Corps. We need domination of the air (and that 'for sure' includes the F-22 Raptor). And, with those things in place, we need to then do the hardest thing of all. We need to do the right thing, for us and for everyone else not so blessed. So, yes, I am an Emersonian Imperialist...of the right thing. And how is the 'right thing' decided upon? Therein lies the rub. Bush and Cheney had all the power in the world, and the good will of the planet (following 9/11) and what did they choose to do? The wrong thing. We voted Bush in (arguably), and he delivered very poorly. But we did not vote him in to do the right thing. We just kinda slipped him on by another mediocre candidate...twice. I think, however, we voted Obama in to do the right thing. And I think we were correct in our choice, if he can work through the morass of our Congressional Houses he was handed to deal with.
Obama was at the top of the heap in the cancellation of the F-22. I believe he is trying to do the right thing, but I do not think, or expect, that he is always going to be correct. We may well rue the day, with respect to this cancellation of a fighter contract, and pay a price in that future I write about. I hope not, but, more than that, the cancellation is symptomatic of our flight from science and technological advance. I think about this and I worry.
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I read the Sunday New York Times today. I was sorry to see that Maureen Dowd, brilliant as she can be, wrote near unprintable drivel. That didn't bother me. Most of the columnist's spend so much time doing everything else but writing that I expect to see their 'staff work' much of the time. What bothered me was the article in the middle of the front page, just under the photo from Afghanistan, which poignantly illustrated it. We just had our worst month over there, with a ton of kids having lost it all in our names. The article was well written. It was all about the problems that the 'living' returning veterans have in coming home. How difficult, or near impossible, that return can be, depending upon the horror of what the particular veteran whet through to get home. There was no fakery in any of that. PTSD is a killer, and when it is not killing directly, it is a destroyer of marriages, family relationships, friendships, sleep and all appetites. It causes drug addiction and acoholism. The worst part is that it is damned difficult to diagnose, very hard to treat, and embarrassing difficult for a combat 'hardened' veteran to admit. No fakery.
But read on in the same issue. Half way through the first section is a long article about this 'problem' that we have with people making up war stories, the places they did or did not serve, decorations or even units served with. We have a federal law that now attacks anyone who is caught even lying verbally about those things, or, and this is a grand bit of fakery, of not being able to prove what he or she said is true! Yes, said! Like in the first amendment freedom of speech 'said.' Wild times. That this article would be in the same section with the PTSD article from the front page is deeply droll. Gallows kind of humor. You see, most civilians do not make up any of that veteran junk! They usually don't even know enough to make credible stuff up. No, the preponderance of fibbers are veterans themselves, embellishing stories and maybe just demonstrating mental damage. Many many of them are veterans returning with PTSD, just like the kids pictured in that photo on page one! Do you know that there are even volunteer groups of other veterans who pursue these fibbers to catch them, label them on the internet and then turn them over to the feds for prosecution? The law is called the 'Stolen Valor' law, and it is one of the most deceptively damaging laws against veterans ever passed in this country.
Let's take a group of these woeful, and deeply hurt, returning veterans, and lets hold them to a standard which no civilian (except a complete idiot civilian, probably on drugs or alcohol) would be held. Where does stuff like this come from? Has the lead content in our water supply increased substantially? Or let's take a geriatric veteran who has PTSD stuff come out late in his life, and gets it all wrong. Are our Congressmen and Congresswomen completely out to lunch? And the veterans who go along and investigate, mostly their fellow veterans, who are these people? I was a Marine Officer in Vietnam, shot three times and brought home on a gurney, barely alive. I won't even tell anyone, ever, what decorations I received. "Let's have that fact-checked," somebody might say. Then I can allow beads of sweat to form as the report comes in. Is the report missing something I said I had? Did I give the proper unit and place? Yes, I know all that stuff by heart and I've got the medals in my closet. But, you know what, I don't want to go through the 'vetting' process. You know, in many ways, it is better for me to say that I did not serve at all. This 'Stolen Valor' law is all about that. I am not ashamed of my service on your behalf. I am just ashamed to admit it to you, or around you. PTSD has caused me to be 'hyper-vigilant,' and I am. I am hyper-vigilant of you. You can, and may, hurt me.
What fakery is up next? The new G.I. Bill! The one that gives vastly huge benefits to the guys and gals who served following 9/11? But not the veterans before? Yeah, that sure seems fair! Thanks again. And how about preferential treatment at V.A. medical facilities for returning Iraqi and Afghani veterans? A bit more thanks is due there, from those of us who bled our asses off in prior wars (and I was at Yokosuka Naval Hospital in Japan first, then Oaknoll over in Oakland, CA, and then the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton, CA....go 'fact-check" it!)
But this new fakery is not just directed towards veterans. It is all around us. It is in the press portrayal of that black professor named Gates, and that police officer named Crowley. The media, with the governments support, changed the whole thing all around, into complete fakery. The black guy lipped off and the cop broke the law, numerous times. That the black guy gets to lip off to the police in his own home (except about any decorations or units he might have or served with!), nobody is much arguing about his right to do that. But nobody is talking about the simple fact that our police, across this entire land, and definitely including Officer Crowley, may not arrest people for that. Fakery. Crowley got to stand up to the President of the United States and thumb his beer foamed nose. I do so hope that Obama has a long long memory.
And the H.R. 3200 fakery. I wouldn't want to pass on that. We started out with everyone talking about health care for all Americans at affordable cost. The insurance companies, and the medical providers (yes, that is the hospital in your neighborhood, and your doctors and dentists in town) do not want this. And they have a ton of influence on those Congress people I was writing about earlier. So much so that the watered-down version of this bill we are hearing about now has just about one thing left, as a solid feature of it. 47 million uninsured Americans will be paying premiums to these rotten insurance companies, except those companies will have Federal Punishment built into the collection system. And the insurance companies will still decide on who gets real coverage, what coverage and when. This is the fakery that is descending upon us in health care. If you think those Federal Punishments for not paying your new medical premium are in any way humorous, then think again. How about no air travel if you are not up to date? How about no driver's license renewal? How about garnishment? Through fakery, lies and just pure bullshit we are being led along like the bovine, press-driven, creatures we are all beginning to resemble, physically and mentally!
A lot of the things I have discussed here are not going away. The bills have been passed. The procedures are in place. Even H.R. 3200 is just about a done (and rotten) deal, thanks to the Blue Dog Democrats and the usual assortment of Southern Fried Republicans, and the big health money people. But can we recognize what we have done? And what we are doing? Can we sit and think about the reality of these things, without just being sold on all of it by that melodious voice coming from the television? If we do not pay attention to the past we are not doomed to repeat it. We are doomed to having everything become a whole lot worse! Over the course of the last ten years have things really been getting any better, anywhere? Think about it.
I have this meteor. It was given to me for Christmas by my astronomer friend. It weighs about a pound and a half and is shaped like a mangled potato. i particularly like the fact that it has three little 'tangs' jutting from the bottom so it sits firmly and flatly on a hard surface. I have ordered a chunk of that terrific Hawaiian wood (Koa) to work on and make a stand with. The 'Dreiser' meteor, as I term it, named after my friend, is not the only meteor I have. An astronaut (a really neat guy named Mitchell) gave me the other one. It came from the Moon, or so he said. Why would an astronaut, and one who had been to the moon, no less, lie about that? I believe him. But I also know that all the geologic stuff brought back from the moon was categorized, labeled, stored, displayed, gifted to other countries, and held to be quite valuable. So what am I doing with a two pound chunk of ejecta from the Moon, sitting over here next to the Dreiser object? The Mitchell and the Dreiser. They are both wonderfully weird ducks, objects and men, and they are both emblematic with respect to the interesting things in life. I like to sit and hold them, one in each hand, sometimes. Cold, but somehow comforting. Even the Mitchell. It used to scare me. The Mitchell weighs just over two pounds but does it is not right. If you move your hand with the object in it, well, your hand just keeps going. The two pound piece of silvery metal does not have the proper inertia. It has too much. And that can't be. Not in our universe. Not as we know it. I went back to MIT to study in Quantum Theory. I worked on Project Antares in Los Alamos. I know these things pretty well. The physical laws of the marcro world, the one we inhabit, are immutable. They always work the same way. Every time. The glass dropped from your hand always falls to the floor. It never starts on the floor and rises to your hand. Never. Inertia is the resistance of an object's mass to acceleration. The mass. So you weigh it. Then try to move it. The inertia has to be a function of that mass, which cannot be changed unless you modify the object in some way (like hollow it out or cut part of it off). So the inertia has to be directly tied to the weight. Balsa wood cannot have the same resistance to movement as lead. Never can that happen. But there sits the 'Mitchell' over there, an arm's length away. And it's not right. I have been waiting for years for somebody to come and collect the thing. Some agents in Brooks Brother's suits and cheap shoes. Not from the Agency. From some sci-fi kind of organization. My imagination runs wild. Mitchell must still be laughing over that 'gift.' I have not seen him since, and that was way back in the early nineties. I know he's alive because he surfaced a few months back, and said that "yes, there are aliens about," or some such, on T.V., and it was played all over. I don't believe that, however. But I also don't believe that the universe is quite the place we think it is either. The 'Mitchell' is reassuring, with respect to that. There is more 'out there' than we know. There are possibilities we have not even considered. I like that a lot.
It is Sunday night and the year is ending. Two Thousand and Eight. Wow. I always expected to make it this far, ever since laying there in Yokosuka Japan recovering from the bullets after Nam. I just knew that if that did not kill me than I was in for a long run. And here I am. Maybe it is that single event in my life that made me a keen observer. Writers are keen observers. The good ones, anyway. And I think I am a good one. I did not write that I was great, however. Only history can make such a determination as that. There have been some stupendously great writers, in my opinion, who have not fared that well. Try Ralph Waldo Emerson. Absolutely terrific. But, historically, barely a footnote. And, as far as the general, rather vapid, population is concerned, no footnote at all. Britney Spears gets more play, and probably will over the years ahead. But then, we have become products and control items of that visual device. We don't really get the words and ideas of philosophers put in front of us anymore. We get Letterman and Leno. We get Conan. They give us acid repartee, like I write for House. They don't give us meaning. They don't give us hope. They don't make us think, and in thinking....do. Act. Attempt. If we can't think it we can't do it.
I swing my meteors. The Dreiser, in my left hand, is real and reassuring in it's functional obedience to physics. The Mitchell is anything but that, yet still delightful in the brilliance of opportunity it portends. You can't really swing them in unison, as the Mitchell does not want to come back from the end of the arcs. Real life. Life as it may be. Real life. Life as it will be. I swing them without coordination, as life really is. A New Year beholds.
from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com
Ah, people, Caroline is going to be the Senator. it matters not what she says or does or even does not say or does not do. She is in. But we will have all the churning and roiling of waters until the appointment is made. If it was an election, she would still win. Does anyone remember the Conan clown from California? Yes, the guy who's name proves that Hollywood stars change their names because they don't want you to know who they are related to rather than because the names are inconvenient or don't sound right, Mr. Arnold Schwarzeneggar. He walked in from off stage, with a resume that was beyond laughable, an accent straight out of Transylvania and star power. He was in. From the night he stepped onto the stage with Mr. Lovely-Stripe-In-My Hair Leno, he was in. That is the power of the media today. Remember our recent debates? As much as I love Obama, I did not suspend my observation capabilities when he went onstage with John McCain. It did not matter what introduction McCain received or what he said. When Obama stepped onto the stage, that was it. He radiated what he has. Star power. And he was in. The rest was time and a lot, and I mean a lot, of talking about issues and problems and concerns. We are, essentially, still tribal. We follow the leader. If the leaders gets us killed by the million or truly miserable, then we take him or her out. And then appoint or elect his or her son or daughter! It is just the way things are. And yes, i hate that part of culture. All culture. Not just our's, but all of humanity responds the same way. We used to study this phenomenon when Sociology still existed (as the study of group relations). Before the powers that be became frightened by that science and did away with it. Now, just believe what they tell you on television. The War is going just fine out there on the Oceanic Front! Orwell be damned.
Back here, in the middle of my newspaper strewn living room, I reflect upon the homogenated news of the day. It seems that WaMu was all about the lousy mortgage loans they gave to unacceptable risks. Once again, the mantra. It is about the poor people. They sneaked in and destroyed everything with their poorness. They could not pay. Low lifes. These stories lately are being more subtle. They are kind of shifting some of the blame to the people who gave out the loans. One interviewed for the article in the Times was in jail for his fourth charge (theft) unrelated to his work as a mortgage counselor for the bank. So we have the criminals now, they, in league with those poor people, causing the downfall of WaMu. Almost seven billion in bad loans. Wow. Seems like a lot, until you look at the simple fact that it was a run on the bank that took it down. Yes, the simple old, we want our money, depression era, run on the bank. Over the course of three days, just before WaMu fell, people went in and took out nine billion of cash. Forget the loans. Those are long term and have all sorts of delays and things to keep them at a distance for awhile. But you can't avoid nine billion in withdrawals. The people lost confidence and that was it. Funny how that works.
I also read, here and there, about how communities are scaling back on programs for the poor because of their shrinking budgets. I am waiting. I am waiting until they just have no more money to take from the poor. And then they will have to cut law enforcement. Prosecutors. Judges. Probation Officers. Parole Officers. Court facilities. Jails. Prisons. Corrections Officers. All of that awful part of our society which is quietly consuming us. Not just the money, but our very morality. It has to go. We have to do something else, but it will have to be forced upon us. We Puritans are a punishing lot.
Finally, the gas thing. Friedman is at it again. He endorsed globalization and sending jobs offshore. Now he is into gasoline, with other conservatives. They see taxes coming. The worst kind of taxes. Those would be taxes on them. Income taxes. So what do they do? They lay it off. Let's get a huge tax on gasoline while the getting is good. We can then use that to pay for many many things. Oh, nothing that they say it will pay for if it gets done. No, the uses of the money will be changed later, like with social security and highway funds. But they want taxes on the gas because that shifts the burden of raising revenue from the rich to the people who have to drive to work. So here we go again. Note this kind of chicanery for what it is. We have to raise more revenue at some time in the future. You are going to see a lot of Friedman style squirming.
It is two days after. My hangover is just starting to clear, and I do not even drink. The weather has responded in kind, with a tepid weepy mess of a presentation, splashing ran all over the lovely clean snow mass out there. Well, it was lovely and clean out there before, albeit cold as hell. Fog. Gray. Christmas is gone. I have a wonderful Mont Blanc pen that the professor gave me, two shirts and three new sweaters. They are all green, or so I am told, being color blind as I am. I put one sweater on this morning. I had laid out the best one (in my damaged opinion) but, after finishing morning clean-up and shave, I forgot I had laid it out and instead threw on one of the other folded one's. I guess I can't tell the difference, and that is okay. Einstein used to have five suits, all of the same color and cut. Then he wore only white shirts and black socks. I like Einstein's style. He was probably as color blind as I, but he was too important for anybody to ask him to his face, or make fun of him (but then, maybe they did and that is why he ended up with the collection he came up with). Harvey has gone into the basement to hunt his 'stocked' supply down there. The pump is running non-stop, but keeping up. Harv checked that out, but, after just one sniff, went back to his dogged pursuit of his genetically enhanced prey. He is not quiet down there. Empty boxes fly and stacked stuff tumbles. The only rule is that he cannot bring his catches up here though, so I ignore a muted crash or two, coming from down there. If he has any catches I mean, which I doubt. But, in his world, as in mine, make believe is a lot more important than reality.
C.E. Morgan wrote a Christmas story and got it placed in the editorial section of the New York Times on Christmas Day! How do you get a short story into the New York Times at all? By being family I guess. I don't know who C.E. Morgan is, except I did read that the first novel written by this person was demanded by the publisher. That same publisher produced a mid-six figure advance. It is all a crock. Oh, it happened all right, but you see, nobody, and I mean nobody unheard of, gets a six figure advance on a first novel. And nobody gets a short story published on the editorial page of the New York Times on Christmas Day. And finally, nobody gets a rotten story published like that. 'Over By Christmas,' the name of the story that person wrote, should really be the title of the author's career, if the story is any indication. A story about the killing and/or training of horses...and the 'gift' of the necessary torture applied during the training process. "You can't shoot a dog while patting it's head, she had learned the hard way..." Good Christ, what bunk. Then there was the phony alternate sub-story of 'Dean, over in iraq, talking to her on the phone. In the background was an explosion so loud it made her "cry tearlessly." I have already used the phrase 'Good Christ,' so what can I reach for now? Cry tearlessly, give me a break. And somebody died from that explosion, in her story. Now what are the chances of that? Zip. Only in a bad story does that happen. Why am I going on about this? Because C.E.'s very existence in print displays one of the major problems we have in the withering writing culture of our nation. Good writing is seldom read, much less published. Instead we have a litany of the 'Over by Christmas' crap. And, instead of looking at the origin of the piece for answers, we question ourselves. "What is wrong with me? Why can't I understand this story?" It is not you. It is poor leadership. it is nepotism. It is profit-taking. It is keeping it in the family. It is good for them, in the short run, but bad for us all in the long run. The New York Times is dying and the stench of that slow decay is right there, seeping out from the Christmas Day editorial page.
Today, we have humor, once again, from that same editorial staff. Judith Warner, one of my favorite dumb columnists, has a run down one side of the page, while Bob Herbert ("I can too push a pencil across a table top with my nose") Herbert has the opposing side. His article is titled "Stop Being Stupid," but then, of course, he writes on and becomes illustrative of his own title! Part of his rant is about people being so stupid as to purchase houses that they knew they would not be able to afford. What rubbish. People buy a house on hope. And then there is the assistance from the talking heads they got. Even the head of the Federal Reserve was telling them that everything would be alright. He sure as hell was not telling them that whatever they bought would be worth fifty percent less one year later! But, in Herbert's twisted view, it was those poor people once again, pulling us all down. Those grubby, selfish and unionized auto workers. You know the routine. But back to the humor. Judith Warner starts her column with this sentence: "What if you could just take a pill and all of a sudden remember to pay your bills on time." I looked at that sentence and then back over at Herbert's title and then started to laugh. You guys! Saturday Night Live is not that droll!
As if we have a problem, in this current culture, remembering to pay the bills. We are not paying the bills because we do not have the money!!!! We remember. No kidding. We remember every night we go to bed and try to think about the unpaid bills. We remember because our phone does not stop ringing, and it is not friends calling because they forgot Christmas! Judith Warner and Bob Herbert do not have those problems. If you are writing regular columns for the New York Times you are wealthy. Not to mention the books and other perks that go with those jobs. Judith's article was all about a group of shrinks that think it is great to take some of these new 'brain enhancing' substances produced by our wonderful drug companies. How it is as okay as enhancing our intellect by eating a proper diet or working out. Trash. Go ahead, take the junk. Prosac and Paxil and Zanax, and all of the other's of the same ilk, were created to help people who suffer from depression. They take those drugs and become robots. Robots who tend to kill themselves. And the shrinks even know that but prescribe them anyway. I know two people who might benefit from those intelligence enhancing drugs, however. They are both columnists writing on the same page, this day, in the New York Times.
The sun has broken through and, although God has decided that the deep snowy sunscape beneath should stay awhile (it's below zero out there), it is nice to have a break. And the presents are under the tree and waiting, which I am delaying going at with my bare hands until I have everything else in the house just right. A few minutes from now. I found a place to make a fifty out of two twenties and a ten, so I have the paper person's tip ready to post. Hopefully, that person will not take 'Halloween' type action against me for a few days, or so I hope.
I have placed a couple of stories inside the body of my posts over the past few days. They have related to Christmas, or the poignancy of it all, in some way or another. Here is one from the mid-nineties when I was not yet 'all that I could be.'
Christmas Pueblo
I found myself inside the confines of the Santa Fe County jail on some vague trumped-up charge. I was in the 'drunk tank,' which is what the cells they use for new prisoner intake are called there. No bars, no windows, just concrete and steel. No way to see out of the ten by twelve box and no ability to hear. Thankfully I was alone for the first few hours, as I had to come to terms with being inside an American institution for the first time (I had already been in a few abroad, so I was not exactly a 'new fish'), and this was not much fun. It was Christmas Eve. Late into the afternoon. The heartless Santa Fe 'Gestapo' had shown no mercy, in spite of the impending holiday. The way I saw it, I was a gringo and they were anything but. They probably saw it in a more 'Harry Callahan' kind of way. The tank did not remain empty for too long. The riff-raff of evening Santa Fe, New Mexico, began to flow in, dredged from a pristine city that prides itself on not having any homeless people. No, they don't, as all of the potentials get combed off the streets and into that heartless modern version of the Bastille, conveniently located five miles South of even the most outer edge of the town.
The cell became so crowded that the entry of one more body meant that there was just no floor space left. And then they opened the door and forced a huge American Indian through. They slammed it shut again, immediately. He stood there for a few seconds, then stared at the man laying next to me on the bare concrete floor. The man moved, finally settling atop the rim of the stainless steel john located in the corner. The Indian took his place, and glared over at me, inches away, when I happened to look into his eyes. This was no Little Big Man Indian of great good cheer and ancient wisdom, like Chief Dan George. No, this was an Indian from hell, more like that one who killed the girl in the Mohican's film a few years back. I showed no fear, but did look away. I was already an old hand at the predation game. You do not show fear to a predator. That is what the predator is looking and waiting for, because it identifies you as prey. No, you meet predation by impassive and emotionless presentation. The predator then takes you for a predator, as well, and there is no point in attacking another predator unless territory is an issue, or survival. You will only likely get hurt, and predators are deathly afraid of injury, as then they become prey.
There was no trouble from the Indian, as the hours passed, nor from any of the usual suspects. Just prisoners inconveniencing the poor guy who's only spot was the on top of the john. He had to move so the drunks could be sick, and worse. Some head of corrections guy must have known a modicum of mercy that night, or, more likely, there were just too many prisoner's for the place to hold, because they came for me. The guards called my name and told me that I was being 'rolled out,' which is prison slang for being released. I went with enthusiasm, but somehow kicked the foot of the snoozing Indian as I departed. "Excuse me White Eyes!" he hissed up, already into a sitting position as I turned. I held together against the pure ferocity of his expression and the penetration of his hawk-like eyes. "My apologies, I was careless," I stated, flatly. Then I moved slowly to join the corrections officer at the door. The Indian's eyes followed me out the door and remained embedded in my mind as I went through the many steps of processing out. Finally, the guards took me to the big door of intake, opened the steel slab with a key about the size of a Waring blender, and shoved me through it. Merry Christmas, the guard said with a laugh, then slammed the door. My relief was immense, until I looked about me. The sodium yellow of the parking lot lamps allowed the driving snow to appear as if I was standing adjacent to Niagra Falls. And it was cold. I wore an old Sheepskin Company coat so I knew I was not likey to freeze, the torso of my body anyway. But I did not know how I was going to make it the many miles to town, much less a few more miles to anywhere I could get a ride. I turned to see if there was a pay phone on the wall to call a cab, but there was nothing. Only the pitiless concrete.
For an instant I felt relief, as the steel door opened again and I saw the warmth that had been prevalent inside. But that was extinguished in an instant, as the big Indian was pushed through the door, before it slammed again. There we were, and I knew fear. He looked down at me with no expression on his face. I tried to look impassive once more, but I knew I was not doing well because I saw a slow cruel smile begin to form around the edges of his mouth. Then he spoke. "Where you going?"
I was surprised. Not that he would talk but that this time he did so in clear unaccented English, not like he had sounded inside. "To town," I murmured, motioning back with my right shoulder. "Never make it. Not on a night like this," he mused, more to himself than to me. He looked out at the scene I had first encountered. The snow was coming down heavier. Then he shrugged. "You can come with me to the pueblo. It's down the way," he gestured south with his own shoulder. I looked off toward the darkness, then looked to the parking lot. But it was Christmas, and i could not stay there, and I knew I could not make it to town. I shrugged with deep resignation. "Okay," I said aloud, then whispered to myself, "let it be Quick." I followed the Indian into the night. There was no trail, there was no moonlight or any other way to establish bearings. So I just followed the huge man closely. We moved downhill, through the La Bajada Canyon, finally trudging under an overpass which held up the four lanes of Interstate forty.
A yellow glow in the distance became the pueblo. The Indian wormed his way between the densely packed mud buildings. Lights glared out, to assure us that the snow had not abated in it's attack. We came around a corner to a wooden door. The upper floor of the adobe structure jutted out above, so we stood and beat the snow from our clothing and boots as best we could. The door opened without anybody knocking. An old woman stuck her head out, then motioned us both inside. I stepped into a different world. The room was filled with people of all ages. They were all sitting at the many tables, seemingly strew about without order. The big Indian motioned me to an empty seat between two young boys. He said nothing. They said nothing. I sat, more in shock and wonder than because I was willingly following rational directions. The two boys reached for bowls and started scooping stuff onto my plate. Tortillas and burritos. I did not even know what Indians ate until then. Corn things, with lots of hot sauces. Everyone went back to eating. They did not look at me, so I started eating as well. I ate the whole plate, so the boys refilled it without any request on my part. When I finished the second plate, they refilled it again. I looked over at the old woman, whom the big Indian had seated himself next to. I saw here smile very briefly. Then the big Indian smiled for the first time, and I understood without any words being necessary. The old woman liked the fact that I loved her food. And the big Indian appreciated that.
"This is my family," he said, gesturing around at all the people at all of the tables. They smiled, as if on cue. "Welcome to the Reservation and my family. I'll drive you back to town tomorrow. But its Christmas, so maybe you want to stay longer for the ceremony." I nodded, only briefly wondering if the 'ceremony' had anything to do with a White Man being cooked in a pot over a roaring fire. "Merry Christmas," I said, as I nodded with enthusiasm, a genuine smile creasing my face for the first time in months. "Merry Christmas," they all yelled back in unison, then began talking, laughing and carrying on, just as if I was an Indian returning to his home.
It is upon us, the Christmas of two thousand and eight. I have sipped of the Don David and made my wish for the happiness of those who have fallen before me. That one sip of a fine Argentinian Malbec, a product from a valley where maybe God reigns over this night. Do you believe in God? I think of such things on this night. It is so cold out there, so blowing and white. My 'advent' trees shine up upon the hill and spokes of light and color radiate out over the sweep of the deep snow, with movement from the wind making them twinkle and play. Is there a God? I don't know. Do you sometimes fall upon your knees and tell your troubles to Him, then ask for His help? I do, and have over the years. Do you ever ask for a ''sign' of His existence? Any sign at all, no matter how subtle or marginal? Then look about for such? I do, and have over the years. In driving I sometimes think of Him as my co-pilot, and even look over at the empty seat, from time to time. Does that me make me totally whacked? If I confessed those acts to a shrink, would the shrink find me certifiable? I mean, more certifiable than I am from other stuff? Do you do any of this? Would you tell if you did? I tried to be a good Catholic, in my early years, then fell away. I tried to be a bad Catholic, but that did not work either. I read the Bible and argued with people who were supposed to know that work backwards and forwards. Reborn Christians. Maybe I fit with them best, simply because they do not mind if I say that "God did not give me the gift of faith." I have studied the Koran, as well, and found it to be strange, going from back to front, as it does. A lot like the Bible, but not. I once, long ago, went down on my knees, literally, and presented the 'Unseen Above' with a list I had written on a yellow note pad. I had written down nine items. The items were problems that I was experiencing, or was afraid of, which had no possiblity of solution whatsoever, outside of divine intervention. I asked for those problems to be taken away. The next day, over coffee with a good friend, who believed more than I, I told him of my act. He asked to see the list, so I produced it. He read the nine items slowly, then looked over the top of the paper at me, as if in wonder that a person such as I could have problems of that magnitude. He shook his head, then smiled. He tore up the list right there, in front of me. And he said, "Now, go out there and those problems will be gone. We spend most of our lives worrying about problems that never happen." We left. Over the next three months the problems, all nine, went away. My question, on this Chrismas Eve night is, did those problems go away because of what Bob said, or because I had put them forth to God and He acted? Or was it all bizarre coincidence? I can't remember the problems anymore, but I wish I could. And how life changes. When I ask God for help now, it is usually because I am asking for Him to help other people, or for Him to help me to help other people. Is it His work that I do not feel that I have to ask him to resolve my own problems anymore? I do not expect any answers from you, out there, on this night. I don't even really expect that anyone will read this, but it is okay if people do. Just for fun. And for their own introspection. We don't often really take the time to isolate ourselves and think such thoughts, or ask ourselves such questions. But I think it would be better if we did. Do you think so too?
I received a gift from a friend, just before he headed South for the holiday. Back when I was 'operational,' during Desert Shield (the operation to prepare us for Desert Storm) I ran a group of communications guys out in the Arabian desert. Our job was to move into Iraq from Saudi Arabia and test the communications capabilities of the Iraqi forces. We were looking for holes in their surveillance net. We found a lot of them, so the mission was a great success. But I lost eleven guys doing it. Back then, our control, back in the home office, used to give us Mont Blanc pens after the completion of a successful mission. The regular size black and gold one for team members and a maroon one for the mission commander. That was me. Some of the guys who passed over did not have surviving family (common to field personnel of that ilk) so I got their personal effects. And the Mont Blanc pens they had accumulated. So I had, and still have, quite a collection of those fine writing specimens. Once and awhile, I give one away to someone I find deserving. I gave a black and gold one to this man here, a friend of mine, just before he left on his trip. And I did not tell him the significance of the gift. Now, here is the amazing thing. He also gave me a gift. It was a small oblong box. I opened it to discover a Mont Blanc pen, just like the one I had given him, except brand spanking new. We laughed. Then he added something. He said that the pen he had given me at least had a full cartridge of ink! I realized that I had not checked the writing capability of the one I had given him. It was, of course, the original that had been in that pen since it was issued way back in the eighties. I nodded and smiled in mirth with him. But I did not tell him about the history of the instrument. Even though he is a noted historian, i was not sure he would like the sentiment and provenance of the gift. But it is Christmas, and those boys gone by, who fought and gave everything, believing it was for us, well, I think they would be okay with the gift. I always wondered why we were given such 'after-action awards.' Most of the guys were not even readers, much less writers. But life is strange, and you just don't get to know some things. Is there a God? Did those pens come from or through him? If they did, then what is their significance?
It is an interesting time to be alive, as this day closes, and Christmas, that single brief day, opens. We are in such dire straights, as a nation, a culture, a way of life. We have a new team at the helm. We have Obama and Clinton and Richardson, and more. We have hope and a shining dream of a grand trip back to a future steeped of the past. We are 'marching to Pretoria, so to speak, and we are doing so with a bit of hesitation and trepidation. We don't know who to trust or why we should trust them. But we have to trust somebody. No choice is a choice in of itself. Or is it as they used to say in early Marine Officer training: "Any decision is better than no decision at all." I don't know so many things. All I can do is celebrate certain things that just feel right. Hilary, who I can't be allowed in front of, particularly on this night, said that "the time of Cowboy diplomacy is over." And I stood up and cheered to hear that on CNN earlier. Some things are going right in this pocket of the universe.
I am going to make a list of nine problems. I am going to get on my knees and ask Him to take those problems away. Then I am going to go see Bob (he is a friend to this day!) and present my list to him over a morning cup of coffee. When Bob tears up the list, as I know he will, my smile will grow broader and my hope for the future warmer, and filled with blissful expectation. Merry Christmas to one and all.
I am fully awake, as I got the papers from under another layer of deep snow. And I found the envelope from the newspaper wraith. What do I put in it? No check because it is addressed to "Delivery Service." I feel like I am getting my papers directly from Langley (CIA) Headquarters. A twenty? Is that too little? Maybe a fifty. I don't have a fifty (this is Southern Outback Wisconsin and they don't know what a fifty is out here, unless is refers to a clothing size) so I would have to put in two twenties and a ten. But that wad seems excessive. But it is Christmas. But it is a tough financial time for all of us. But I am afraid of the Newspaper Delivery Service. I was once a very decisive person, but look at me now. I am still three presents 'short of a full deck' and it is Christmas Eve, and snowing to beat all get out. What do I do? Where do I go? Lake Geneva has a bunch of stores, each about the size of an airport kiosk. Will they even open in the middle of this, the most aggressive winter attack of recorded history out here? I don't know. The aging dinosaur of a Rover sits patiently in the garage, crying softly to be decked out in the chains that even Professor Machado, the smartest man any of us have ever known, can't fathom the directions to install. But they are back there, all shiny on the floor behind the front seats. And 'Bertram' my old wonderful troll of a beaten-up four-wheel-drive is ready for anything.
Oliver Morton. He wrote a column for the New York Times this morning. He slipped through, like Thomas L. Friedman. The editorial board of the Times must be on Christmas furlough. Both of the columns were pretty extraordinary, bright as they were accurate. Morton wrote of the earth, its condition and prospects, while Friedman wrote about the silly and destructive celebration of stupidity that has taken over this country and caused much of what we are experiencing now. Yes, Thomas stole some of my stuff, then wrote it better. Usually, I only celebrate Maureen Dowd's assumption of my blog material (I can't call it stealing as her fan club gets all upset, and besides, its not. We don't own this stuff out here anymore. What we bloggers write is like air. You just breathe it in and then it gets re-breathed again). So Thomas, you may have my stuff and I doff my non-existent hat at the elegant manner in which you chose to use it. But back to Morton's column. He writes about the earth as George Carlin used to describe it. If the earth ever figures out we (homo sapiens) are here, and causing trouble, then we are screwed. We have almost no power over this blue and white ball of water and ice. Even our limp-wristed influence over base temperature is a mere nothing to this planet. And the only one's to actually suffer from our excess are likely to be, well, us. The Earth turns and moves on inexorably and it is unaffected, really, in the scale of things, by even such events as large astroid strikes. That stuff merely impacts on the ecosystem. Life goes up and down and around stuff like that all the time. Way to go Morton. A scientist. A brain. No more of that Bush stuff. Okay, okay, I am not going there. I will even give that low-life scum bag of a drooling president a break today. It is Christmas Eve. And life is cold, snow-buried, but good. Christmas music plays, I have the wood for a fire to burn through this day, on into my own personal Eve, and I have a prime rib for the oven. Harvey is ever loyal and only mildly condescending. Cat bliss.
Now, I shall get cleaned up and go out there into the whiteness of day. It is Christmas Eve and there just have to be more people God wants to put in my way. Merry Christmas!
i get comments through email, much more than I get comments on this site. it seems that many people feel that I am a bit 'over the top' tough on some of our leaders, the pundits and even the media. Am I? I wonder about that. The RAGE has not set in yet. The rage I speak of is the one that is going to sweep this country once everyone figures out that they are not going to avoid being stung to the core by this financial madness of the last forty years. And they will figure out that they were robbed, which means their families and their children's children, as well. Note that there are sites popping out on the internet about where the exact locations of the thieve's mansions are located! That is just the start. But I will back off a bit. I will leave Bill Bennet out of my vitrolic comment. He is bedded down on an opium mat somewhere, 'biting the clouds,' as they say in China (about opium smoking). I shall not attack William Kristol for awhile, no matter what his elitist pedigree and lifestyle seem to demand. And Krauthammer. He is a nasty little guy, but he's crippled, so I'll back off. That I support the auto workers, wholeheartedly, well, I guess that is okay. And I hope it is okay for me to continue to advise Governor Rod. Remember, he is our entertainment right now. We don't need him to pack it in just yet. Couric gets a pass, as does that little weasel Ben Stein. Maybe I can pick on Letterman. He seems to be able to take it.
The cards are gone. I don't know how they turned out. I never like the finished product because it could have used more work and detail. But my heart is in the right place. I send them to transmit care and thanks. Thanks for being someone deserving of getting one, in my judgment, and care about people who have great hearts and are helping us go in the right direction. The postman at the little post office here, Michael, a really really great guy, frightened me to death by first telling me the way in which I framed and glued the stamps to the envelopes would never be allowed. There I stood, with fifty of these things in my hands. He saw my look, and to prevent my collapse, and the subsequent trampling by everyone else in line, he relented. He hand-cancelled them. Thank you Mike, and Merry Christmas. Try to find that kind of greatness in a big city post office. On the other hand, he can tell me what is inside the envelopes of my incoming mail without my opening them.
The Advent trees are out there whipping around in the wind and blowing snow. I can see them from up here in my office. This office emits a 'blue hue' when I am working. That is most nights. People who have come to know that my abode is secreted right off the main road and a bit down the hill can see the blue hue when they drive by. Some beep, but I no longer attempt to get to the window to wave. I am just not fast enough. Harvey pays attention though. He always raises his head, looks toward the window and then back at me, as if to say: "Does someone need to be eaten?" When I do not respond, he lays his head back down and does what he does. Passes the winter time by sleeping, or making believe he is asleep. Fools me. Why is it that a cat can come out of sleep in an instant? I can't do that. Some of the reason that i go out into ten below weather, forgetting the nearby prepared duster, is because i am not fully awake at that point. I am fully awake a few seconds later when I get back in, however. Which reminds me. I have to find that envelope. For the newspaper guy/gal. I just cannot get by without the papers and I can't get down that driveway at that hour of the morning. Without a substantial Christmas tip I just know what is going to happen. I also can't seem to get up early enough to catch the sucker red-handed, delivering. Or, if I am up early enough, he sneaks in and out without my knowing. Maybe i should start drinking again. Or try that Ginko stuff. No, that was discredited, like red meat. Maybe it will come back, like red meat.
I have this friend in Texas. He is smarter than me. But he thinks that I am smarter than him. Or at least he makes me think that he thinks that. I am confused. But, anyway, he also edits some of my work. And he is terrific. But I have to be careful because he 'lays things between the lines,' if you know what I mean. I have to re-read his email several times to get everything. And when I don't, well, he is also a bit arrogant and steps on me with his marvelous intellect. I think I have convinced him to write again himself. He once sent me some work. It was better than mine. But I could not tell him that because...I was not big enough to be able to do that. So, for Christmas, I am encouraging him to write again. And that feels good. There is so much under-utilization of talent today. It is out here, but our culture has not been encouraging it.
Once i was so poor I could not afford a Christmas tree. I think it was nineteen seventy four, or so. I went to the Sears and Roebuck Christmas Tree lot to see if I could find a remnant. I had four dollars. And I had no car, well, none that ran. I got to the Sears parking lot and started checking the leaning cut trees. There was nothing under ten dollars. But I had the diligence only known by poor people. I went on checking. After awhile, a guy came over to help me. He had the buff outdoor wear that I have never really never known how to buy or wear. I tried to brush the guy off and keep on checking. But he would have none of it. Finally, stepping from tree to tree with me, like a bad Laurel and Hardy routine, he asked the big question: "How much do you have?" I shrugged trying to appear urbane, then gave up. "Four bucks," I admitted. "Where do you live?" he replied, which surprised me. What did it matter?
So I described the labyrinthian path I had followed to get to the lot. "No car?" he asked. I frowned. I could not figure out what his point was, so I let him have it: "No car, four bucks, no job, and no prospects, is that enough for you?" i started to walk away. "What about this one?" the guy promptly came back with. He pointed at a beautiful eight-foot Noble Pine. I just looked at him. He stepped closer to me. "This isn't really the Sears Christmas Tree lot. it's mine. I just rent the space every year. It would be a favor to me if you would take the tree for Christmas and let me deliver it with my truck." I couldn't say anything. I thought of all the proud reasons that I thought that that was a bad idea. He saw me think those thoughts. "I do it for redemption, so don't get the wrong idea," he said gently. "I wasn't always the way i am today. i was something less. And I owe it to The Man to do Christmas right every chance I get. You're my chance. Don't blow it for me." I nodded. What else could I do. I rode with him in his truck, with my wonderful tree in the back. He didn't say a word and neither did I. When he helped me unload it in front of my apartment I saw his shirt rise up on his forearm. There was a tattoo there. The image was of a couple of wings, under which was inscribed "101st Airborne." And I understood. "Merry Christmas," he yelled, driving away with his window down, a big smile looking back at me. I shouted the only reply that seemed appropriate: "Semper fi."
It is said that St. Francis of Assisi created the first Nativity Scene in his yard. The mythology has it that he set up a manger, and the then made up other characters from whatever he had laying around. He wanted to recreate the birth of Christ, the best he could, for himself and his friends. I have one. A manger and the Nativity Scene characters. The stable I made myself out of some old wood with a hand saw and some nails. It has survived intact for twenty-nine years. In 1969 I was fresh out of the hospital from getting all shot up in Vietnam. I could not be a Marine and I could not walk, or move well enough, to get a job. So I sat around and waited. During this time I found a small apartment in San Clemente to live in. So cheap that my other dwellers in the six-plex were new immigrants from Vietnam. Strange, to circulate among them every day as I limped around with nothing to do. One day I encountered an older man, who I knew to be the head of one of the families living there. His name was Huang Nguyen. Somehow, he had found out something of my service in his former country. He approached, shook my hand, and then apologized. I didn't get it. I tried to get to the bottom of things but his English was bad. Instead he invited me in to meet his wife and three young children. They treated me very nicely, and I was surprised. In country, the Vietnamese civilians I met had all been cold and remote. Huang took me into his bedroom/office. There he showed me two pictures on his walls. One was of him walking arm in arm with Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the North Vietnamese Army. In the other, he was striding along, a huge smile on his face, with Robert McNamera. I asked Huang who he really was. He told me that he was the former Province Commander of the I Corps area. I was stunned. That was the area I fought all over and had been wounded in. I asked Huang who's side he had really been on. He said that he was on both. He had a family. He did not know who was going to win. He then asked me what I would have done in his place. I thought over that one, and then had to laugh. We shook hands again, both laughing. We would have become friends, I think, except the language barrier was just too great. And maybe, I was too soon from that awful war.
It was just before Christmas, when Huang and I met that year. On Christmas Eve, his oldest daughter, a pudgy cute little thing everyone called Hamburger, because of her proclivity for those things, knocked on my door. She handed me a bag and said Merry Christmas, then giggled and ran. I took the bat in and opened all the small packages wrapped inside. The Three Wise Men. The manger. The baby Jesus. Mary and Joseph. The dutiful cow, sheep and donkey. And a big camel. All the pieces are porcelain and gilded with gold that has not tarnished to this day. The sit this evening in my home-made stable atop a special table near the base of my tree.
I think often of Huang and Hamberger. I wonder what became of them. They were always wonderful to me and seemed to always act surprised that I was wonderful back to them. As much as I could be. I had nothing but limps, scars and painful memories back then. Why did Huang apologize? Why were they so nice? Why did they give me a Nativity Scene, of all things? Today, I don't know anymore than I knew back then, although I have had a lot of time to think and many more battles to grow more experienced. If there is a God. If there really is a Jesus. Then Huang and his family were sent to help me through. To help me understand, at that so very difficult a time, that the Vietnamese people were not to blame. That they were not much different than we are, and were. That my pain did not have to be translated into an eternal hatred. And so I have the set. And it means a lot to me. Christmas is special in so many ways to me, and I wish that the spirit evident in this season would seep through to the rest of the year for everyone.
