The Supreme Court's recent Kelo decision regarding eminent domain has been the hot topic on blogs and talk radio. That, I suppose, is a good thing because, if nothing else, it holds up the five mental midgets on the court who favored this piece of crap decision up to the scorn they deserve. It's enough to make one start a "Spit on the Foul Five" campaign. But being civilized, we'll refrain from exciting such agitation.
Instead I'll address the topic of talk radio and its BIG HEAD.
Yours truly has been listening to talk radio in one form or another for forty years. I can remember the days when Joe Pyne used to tell the callers he disagreed with to "go gargle with razor blades." And they say that Rush Limbaugh is crude. But back in those days men were men and felt free to be jerks in public.
First of all, let's face the fact that nationwide talk radio programs are pretty useless, and the hosts have over-rated opinions of themselves and their power over the populace through the airwaves. If Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity had half the influence that they pretend to have Congress would have long ago seriously addressed the problem of illegal immigration, voted for the appointment of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador from the US or would have voted for Mr. Bush's nominees for the Federal bench. Instead our elected masters have continued have deigned to cut their usual capers i.e., posing, preening and screeching.
Local talk radio is a forum hosted by the half educated and half informed who have a talents for turning a phrase and mounting campaigns such as handing out broccoli at courthouses where juries have deliberated longer on murder cases than the hosts have thought proper. The local talk radio hosts who are really capable of more than superficial thought are few and far between. Doug McIntyre, Al Rantel and Jill Stewart are able to dig below the surface of a topic. But the rest spend most of their valuable airtime trying to humiliate their opponents via ad hominem attacks and clever phrases instead of engaging them in conversation, and scratching at the crust of a matter with a stick instead of digging to the heart.
But even back in the glory days of Ray Briem, and there was no radio host more informed regarding international affairs, the problem with talk radio was that it was almost a form of talk therapy i.e., if a problem is talked about enough the problem will be solved.
Take the case of Eula Love. Back in the 80s a woman named Eula Love was shot and killed by a Los Angeles policeman. She was, at the time, wielding a butcher knife And the person who made the call to the LAPD, a gas meter reader, claimed that she threatened him with the knife. For six months after the incident the talk radio world was dedicated to the case with only three variations of the theme: Woulda, shoulda, coulda. All the talk succeeded in -- nothing. But by the time the Eula Love matter finally faded from the talk radio world, the callers and many listeners seemed to have felt that the problem, through all the gassing, had been solved. Never mind that ten years later a very similar case took place showing that either police policy had not been changed or that human nature cannot be changed.
The difference between then and now is that then topics were better analyzed, and the hosts were better informed. It was considered the job of the talk show host to know his topic well and not just fly by the seat of his pants. Now many hosts are content with reading a headline and taking off from there. But in either case, all the talk solves nothing. It just raises blood pressure or serves as a source for jokes. Talk radio has as much connection to the real world and the world of ideas as does the World Weekly News. And the World Weekly News is more entertaining and takes itself less seriously.
Oh, Batboy! Whither goest thou?
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Some Animals...
Last night in a city not more than a few miles from Bloody Nib Manor, Hawaiian Gardens (a city that was actually named after a hamburger stand), a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff was murdered in cold blood by a gang member: Sheriff's Deputy Killed in Hawaiian Gardens .
Needless to say, any such death is a tragedy, especially for the victim's family and co-workers.I can only offer my prayers for the survivors of Deputy Ortiz.
Lee Baca, the L.A County Sheriff, has since come out with a statement that the number one job of the LACSD is the suppression, perhaps even the elimination of, gangs. The odd thing is that until the tragic event of Deputy Ortiz's death, Sheriff Baca has not made such a statement in at least two years. At that time Deputy David March was murdered in the City of Industry by an illegal alien gang member who has since fled to Mexico. Since that time the only thing Sheriff Baca has complained about on this issue is that the cacachrocy that is the government of Mexico has refused to hand over the killer of David March to American justice. His tirades against gangs have been few and far between. In the past Mr. Baca (is it a coincidence that his name rhymes with the Japanese word "baka" which means "crazy?") has taken a "Kumbaya" approach to gang problems -- meaning misunderstood and disenfranchised youth-- and has attempted to get more money out of the county for his pet projects. He has released prisoners early from the county jail while crying poor mouth. He has urged the populace of the county to understand and interact with gang members instead of pointing them out for the termites that they are.
In the intervening years between the murders of Deputy March and Deputy Ortiz, more than a few innocent civilians have been murdered by gang members. Baca's voice has been silent during these deaths
What is the conclusion to be drawn from the timing of Sheriff Baca's words? Could it be that those who wear forest green and khaki are somehow more valuable than those who do not wear uniforms?
While I support law enforcement, I do not think that the life of a mother pushing a stroller who is killed by a stray bullet is less precious in the sight of our Lord than is the life of a man who has volunteered to uphold the law. One is an innocent victim. The other is a rough man who has consented to face other rough men.
A deputy or a policeman is, in a sense, a soldier. He is a man who has chosen to place himself in the line of fire. A mother or a liquor store clerk or a bum at the side of a railroad track have not consented to place themselves in danger. They are the innocent, even be they drunks or bad mothers or profiteers, because they did not sign up for the gang war. They have gone into the world unarmed, partially because the sheriff will not allow them to be armed. But it is only the soldiers in the war against gangs that Baca deigns to recognize as victims; not those who happen to have gotten on the wrong side of the wrong people or have been in the wrong place at the wrong time or who have happened to have money that other, more violent people have wanted.
I've been working in the machine shops for more than thirty years. In that time I've seen several of my co-workers gunned down by baddies. We, in the shop, while angry about the situations, have not vowed to get our own against the perps. We left it to the governmental authorities. We expected no special treatment despite the fact that the victim was a man who helped make airplanes fly, nuclear reactors react or roller coasters roll. We, perhaps wrongly, felt that we were among the people who made America get from day to day, and each murder of our brothers was a spoke in the wheel of progress. We never stepped forward to take on gangs as much as we wanted to. We depended upon the deputies and police and marshals who often proved to be ineffective or unintersted unless one of their own are involved. Cops seem to have had a special status while one of us or our wives or our kids catch a bullet or a knife and are just routine cases.
Lee Baca is almost as culpable for the death of Deputy Ortiz as is the gang member who shot him. Lee Baca played the Kumbaya fiddle and we have all suffered for it. There are bad people in the world. They deserve to be put away. Sheriff Baca has wanted to play the caring daddy instead of the sheriff until it was one of his own who caught the bullet. He should have spent more time studying the jailing methods in Maricopa County, AZ, where prisoners are housed in tents and fed a daily diet that costs 98 cents per day and are treated as pariahs, than wasting his time reading the Tao Te Ching or Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Lee Baca, as sheriff, has not paid attention to the decaying quality of gangs on working class society. He has not recognized termites. He has not stated pubicly the danger that gangs pose to society until now. He has not been willing, until now, to publicly recognize that there are bad people who are dangerous to individuals and society.
We here at Bloody Nib Manor mourn the deaths of Deputy Ortiz and Deputy March and all the innocent deaths that occurred between those two deaths. And despite our Christian faith, we hope the worst of all takers of innocent life and soldiers of law. And we hope that perhaps that Sheriff Baca will begin to try less to understand bad people and spend more time trying to apprehend them. That is why he was elected. He was not elected to be county chaplin..
Needless to say, any such death is a tragedy, especially for the victim's family and co-workers.I can only offer my prayers for the survivors of Deputy Ortiz.
Lee Baca, the L.A County Sheriff, has since come out with a statement that the number one job of the LACSD is the suppression, perhaps even the elimination of, gangs. The odd thing is that until the tragic event of Deputy Ortiz's death, Sheriff Baca has not made such a statement in at least two years. At that time Deputy David March was murdered in the City of Industry by an illegal alien gang member who has since fled to Mexico. Since that time the only thing Sheriff Baca has complained about on this issue is that the cacachrocy that is the government of Mexico has refused to hand over the killer of David March to American justice. His tirades against gangs have been few and far between. In the past Mr. Baca (is it a coincidence that his name rhymes with the Japanese word "baka" which means "crazy?") has taken a "Kumbaya" approach to gang problems -- meaning misunderstood and disenfranchised youth-- and has attempted to get more money out of the county for his pet projects. He has released prisoners early from the county jail while crying poor mouth. He has urged the populace of the county to understand and interact with gang members instead of pointing them out for the termites that they are.
In the intervening years between the murders of Deputy March and Deputy Ortiz, more than a few innocent civilians have been murdered by gang members. Baca's voice has been silent during these deaths
What is the conclusion to be drawn from the timing of Sheriff Baca's words? Could it be that those who wear forest green and khaki are somehow more valuable than those who do not wear uniforms?
While I support law enforcement, I do not think that the life of a mother pushing a stroller who is killed by a stray bullet is less precious in the sight of our Lord than is the life of a man who has volunteered to uphold the law. One is an innocent victim. The other is a rough man who has consented to face other rough men.
A deputy or a policeman is, in a sense, a soldier. He is a man who has chosen to place himself in the line of fire. A mother or a liquor store clerk or a bum at the side of a railroad track have not consented to place themselves in danger. They are the innocent, even be they drunks or bad mothers or profiteers, because they did not sign up for the gang war. They have gone into the world unarmed, partially because the sheriff will not allow them to be armed. But it is only the soldiers in the war against gangs that Baca deigns to recognize as victims; not those who happen to have gotten on the wrong side of the wrong people or have been in the wrong place at the wrong time or who have happened to have money that other, more violent people have wanted.
I've been working in the machine shops for more than thirty years. In that time I've seen several of my co-workers gunned down by baddies. We, in the shop, while angry about the situations, have not vowed to get our own against the perps. We left it to the governmental authorities. We expected no special treatment despite the fact that the victim was a man who helped make airplanes fly, nuclear reactors react or roller coasters roll. We, perhaps wrongly, felt that we were among the people who made America get from day to day, and each murder of our brothers was a spoke in the wheel of progress. We never stepped forward to take on gangs as much as we wanted to. We depended upon the deputies and police and marshals who often proved to be ineffective or unintersted unless one of their own are involved. Cops seem to have had a special status while one of us or our wives or our kids catch a bullet or a knife and are just routine cases.
Lee Baca is almost as culpable for the death of Deputy Ortiz as is the gang member who shot him. Lee Baca played the Kumbaya fiddle and we have all suffered for it. There are bad people in the world. They deserve to be put away. Sheriff Baca has wanted to play the caring daddy instead of the sheriff until it was one of his own who caught the bullet. He should have spent more time studying the jailing methods in Maricopa County, AZ, where prisoners are housed in tents and fed a daily diet that costs 98 cents per day and are treated as pariahs, than wasting his time reading the Tao Te Ching or Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Lee Baca, as sheriff, has not paid attention to the decaying quality of gangs on working class society. He has not recognized termites. He has not stated pubicly the danger that gangs pose to society until now. He has not been willing, until now, to publicly recognize that there are bad people who are dangerous to individuals and society.
We here at Bloody Nib Manor mourn the deaths of Deputy Ortiz and Deputy March and all the innocent deaths that occurred between those two deaths. And despite our Christian faith, we hope the worst of all takers of innocent life and soldiers of law. And we hope that perhaps that Sheriff Baca will begin to try less to understand bad people and spend more time trying to apprehend them. That is why he was elected. He was not elected to be county chaplin..
The Heroine of the West
Your faithful correspondent has once before addressed the lawsuit, in Italy, against Oriana Fallaci, the Italian journalist, for her writings considering the the danger of Islam in Europe. Signora Fallaci (along with, surprisingly, the almost divine Brigitte Bardot) has been one of the loudest Stentors regarding the Islamization of Europe.. Signora Fallaci, despite being ill with cancer and having to battle a Mohammedan termite, has granted Tunku Varadarajan an interview:OpinionJournal - Citizen of the World.
Signora Fallaci considers herself a leftist, but she, along with Christopher Hitchens and BB, seem to see the danger of encroaching Islam in the Western World better than our elected masters.
Signora Fallaci considers herself a leftist, but she, along with Christopher Hitchens and BB, seem to see the danger of encroaching Islam in the Western World better than our elected masters.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
A World Split Apart
Alexander Solzhenitsyn has always been a rather difficult person for your faithful correspondent to fully embrace. The first reason is simply because I've never read through any of his books. There is only so much Russian depression that I can take before I begin to toy with the idea of trying to play Russian roulette with a 1911 Colt pistol (those who know anything about the guns will get the gag). Only Finns are more dour. The second is that, while I have nothing against the greater Orthodox Church despite my being a Baptist, he's just too Russian Orthodox for me to feel comfortable with.
He is, in a sense, a Russian Francis Schaffer. While one agrees with much, if not most, of what he says, there's something a little off-putting about the man. One may feel comfortable shaking his hand, but giving him a slap on the back would be just too much. There is a steely severity that makes the old English Puritans look cheerful. And perhaps that is the quality that was exhibited by Isaiah and Elijah.
Solzenitsyn was, during the bad old days of the Soviet Union, the Western media's darling. They apparently liked the fact that this writer and former artillery officer was kicking against the goads of established Communism. But, much of the world of reportage seemed to feel that the Soviet Union was not a true communistic government and that perhaps Solzenitsyn might be the herald of a true Marxism in Russia, or at least "Communism With a Human Face."
They were wrong and they were disappointed. Much to their disappointment, Solzenitsyn was, as is, a Christian, albeit of the nationalistic Russian sort. And once he made it clear that he would have no truck with western liberalism, his card was removed from their Rolodexes.
It was in 1978 at Harvard that he really tipped his hand in a speech that was not widely reported. It is a speech, that while at times hard, deserves regular reading. If I had the misfortune to be a high school teacher or college professor I would make it a point to read it annually to my classes of snot noses wearing Che Guevara t-shirts.
Here is a voice crying in the wilderness:A World Split Apart
Read it and think.
He is, in a sense, a Russian Francis Schaffer. While one agrees with much, if not most, of what he says, there's something a little off-putting about the man. One may feel comfortable shaking his hand, but giving him a slap on the back would be just too much. There is a steely severity that makes the old English Puritans look cheerful. And perhaps that is the quality that was exhibited by Isaiah and Elijah.
Solzenitsyn was, during the bad old days of the Soviet Union, the Western media's darling. They apparently liked the fact that this writer and former artillery officer was kicking against the goads of established Communism. But, much of the world of reportage seemed to feel that the Soviet Union was not a true communistic government and that perhaps Solzenitsyn might be the herald of a true Marxism in Russia, or at least "Communism With a Human Face."
They were wrong and they were disappointed. Much to their disappointment, Solzenitsyn was, as is, a Christian, albeit of the nationalistic Russian sort. And once he made it clear that he would have no truck with western liberalism, his card was removed from their Rolodexes.
It was in 1978 at Harvard that he really tipped his hand in a speech that was not widely reported. It is a speech, that while at times hard, deserves regular reading. If I had the misfortune to be a high school teacher or college professor I would make it a point to read it annually to my classes of snot noses wearing Che Guevara t-shirts.
Here is a voice crying in the wilderness:A World Split Apart
Read it and think.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Why This and Not That?
Occasionally in Christendom we run across people who are just stark raving mad. Some examples are Martin Madan who, during the eighteenth century, wrote a 900 page book in defense of biblically based "Christian polygamy," Gregori Rasputin or the Romanian Orthodox priest/monk in this story:BBC NEWS World Europe Crucified nun dies in 'exorcism' . A poor woman in psychological and spiritual pain dies because of a case of hysteria among a few nuns and a monk. The story makes the BBC news and the IOL South African news service. An evil has been done in the name of Christianity by people who are not so much religious as they are superstitious.
Western news services love stories like this because they show, by way of guilt by association, that any Christian who believes that Satan is real is no more advanced than an Aztec pulling out hearts at the top of a pyramid in Mexico. There are usually one or too stories like this per year and they always take place in locations that are either primitive or primitive settlements within modern countries. I can, offhand, think of two stories from the Philippines and one from Koreatown in Los Angeles that have taken place within the past two years.
Now, Korea is not exactly a primitive country, but some of what is purported to be Christianity that is practiced in Korea is shot through with Confucianism, Buddhism and animism. The result of such attempts at religious synchronisity are like alchemism; the nobler element is debased by the attempted alloying of the baser elements. Instead of gold one ends up with deadly poisons.
But note that we, in the US at least, get about two or three such stories reported per year. They are reported because they are oddities and they involve "those kooky Christians."
On the other hand, the following story was only reported in a Pakistani newspaper:Gates of Vienna: The Pain is Etched in Her Face (Tip o' the lid to Dymphna). Pakistan is a Mohammedan nation. It was established as such. Much of the country is, in fact, ruled by Islamic clerics and by Islamic law. There are approximately 4,000 such incidents per year in Pakistan. And yet I have never read an account of this crime nor any like it in Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, the LA Times or the New York Times. I've never seen nor heard stories such as this on CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS or BBC.
Why?
Could it be because such news organizations hold Christianity to a higher standard than Mohammedism. Are husbands in Pakistan excused from killing their wives with acid because they are "little brown babies," to quote the missionary in Murder on the Orient Express, and are just too damned primitive to know any better? Is it a case of rare Christian cruelty bad, normal Islamic cruelty no story?
The monk/priest in Romania should be publically hanged and the nuns who helped him should be jailed. And all the husbands in Pakistan who killed their wives because their wives refuse to accept a co-wife, should be publically hanged.
Bad actions are bad actions. But at least the monk/priest in Romania is apparently suffering from some sort of religious mania. The men in Pakistan are just hungry for a new shot of leg.
Western news services love stories like this because they show, by way of guilt by association, that any Christian who believes that Satan is real is no more advanced than an Aztec pulling out hearts at the top of a pyramid in Mexico. There are usually one or too stories like this per year and they always take place in locations that are either primitive or primitive settlements within modern countries. I can, offhand, think of two stories from the Philippines and one from Koreatown in Los Angeles that have taken place within the past two years.
Now, Korea is not exactly a primitive country, but some of what is purported to be Christianity that is practiced in Korea is shot through with Confucianism, Buddhism and animism. The result of such attempts at religious synchronisity are like alchemism; the nobler element is debased by the attempted alloying of the baser elements. Instead of gold one ends up with deadly poisons.
But note that we, in the US at least, get about two or three such stories reported per year. They are reported because they are oddities and they involve "those kooky Christians."
On the other hand, the following story was only reported in a Pakistani newspaper:Gates of Vienna: The Pain is Etched in Her Face (Tip o' the lid to Dymphna). Pakistan is a Mohammedan nation. It was established as such. Much of the country is, in fact, ruled by Islamic clerics and by Islamic law. There are approximately 4,000 such incidents per year in Pakistan. And yet I have never read an account of this crime nor any like it in Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, the LA Times or the New York Times. I've never seen nor heard stories such as this on CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS or BBC.
Why?
Could it be because such news organizations hold Christianity to a higher standard than Mohammedism. Are husbands in Pakistan excused from killing their wives with acid because they are "little brown babies," to quote the missionary in Murder on the Orient Express, and are just too damned primitive to know any better? Is it a case of rare Christian cruelty bad, normal Islamic cruelty no story?
The monk/priest in Romania should be publically hanged and the nuns who helped him should be jailed. And all the husbands in Pakistan who killed their wives because their wives refuse to accept a co-wife, should be publically hanged.
Bad actions are bad actions. But at least the monk/priest in Romania is apparently suffering from some sort of religious mania. The men in Pakistan are just hungry for a new shot of leg.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
I Wanna Be Persuaded
After your faithful correspondent's post regarding Fanny Price the ever lovely Lady Nib informed me that Fanny could not possibly be my favorite Jane Austen heroine and that I could not love her. I could respect her, but not like her because she was so darn "still." I considered telling her to take a gander in the looking glass, but refrained since she had a skillet in her hand at the time. Fanny is my fave because she has the qualities that make a good person and she doesn't blow a bugle about it.
Anne Elliot comes in a close second. Anne is the character that is closest to real life. She's got a wicked streak in her (she listens to gossip with interest), and she has been influenced by those around her and has regretted it.
When the novel Persuasion opens Anne is about twenty-seven years old (pretty close to being an old maid for her class at the time), lives with her father and older sister, and has regrets about passing up a marriage proposal from Wentworth (who was at the time of the proposal was a young naval officer) under pressure from her family and her friend Lady Russell. She seems to be the only one in the Elliot household who has a sense of how to get on with life. Her father has spent his money foolishly and is apparently an example of the target audience of the eighteenth century version of Maxim magazine. He is a man who values appearance over content. His favorite reading is the List of Peers, which contains his name as a Baronet. The older sister, Elizabeth, is much the same as the father in her self regard despite the fact that at thirty-one, she is not married and there are no prospects in sight. The house in which they live is full of mirrors so that Sir Elliot and Elizabeth can gaze on their uniqueness while their money drains away.
Anne, on the other hand, takes care of business. She is not particularly happy living with her father and sister, but she makes the best of a rather dreary situation. Imagine yourself living with a couple of people who considered themselves to be supermodels and thought the world owed them a living because they cut fine figures (in their own minds).
I won't bother to recount the plot of the story because, to be honest, you should have read it by now. But here are the things that are good about Anne Elliot. She does what has to be done. She respects her family even if she doesn't like them much. She doesn't allow herself to be turned by flattering words. She regrets some past actions, but doesn't dwell on them. She sees through the surface to the core most of the time. She is able to overlook a lapse of a man she loves (Captain Wentworth) and see that a life cannot be defined by a stumble. This may be due to the fact that she realizes that she has stumbled.
I assess Jane Austen's characters using what I call the Ukulele Test. Imagine, for a moment, that each of the characters, in turn, come upon a servant or a beau playing a ukulele:
Elizabeth Bennett: "How amusing. It's too bad it's not a violin."
Elinor Dashwood: "Huh?"
MaryAnne Dashwood: "How romantic! It's so nobly savage!"
Emma Woodhouse: "I wonder if there are any wahines in the county I can hook this fellow up with. Or maybe Jane Fairfax will do."
Fanny Price, shyly tapping her foot to the music: "I wonder if he can play 'Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending?'"
Anne Elliot: "Five foot two, eyes of blue, hootchy, hootchy, hootchy koo. Has anybody seen my gaaaaal?"
Anne Elliot takes life as it is. She's been knocked down, albeit she's not living in Gin Lane turning tricks for a sixpence. But in the Austen world she's been badly served by her family and best friend. While she doesn't smile about it, she gets on with it. She's the most realistic, in the modern sense, of the Austen characters, and I think that she is probably a reflection of the author in later life. And Anne ends up marrying a sailor: not always a bad thing. The ever lovely Lady Nib married a swab jockey who had no percentage in a prize and has not complained overmuch.
If you have neither the time nor inclination to read the book Persuasion you may want to consider watching the video starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds (the man born to have sideburns). It's not quite as faithful to the book as is the old BBC version, but it captures the sense of the book better.
Next week: Who knows?
Anne Elliot comes in a close second. Anne is the character that is closest to real life. She's got a wicked streak in her (she listens to gossip with interest), and she has been influenced by those around her and has regretted it.
When the novel Persuasion opens Anne is about twenty-seven years old (pretty close to being an old maid for her class at the time), lives with her father and older sister, and has regrets about passing up a marriage proposal from Wentworth (who was at the time of the proposal was a young naval officer) under pressure from her family and her friend Lady Russell. She seems to be the only one in the Elliot household who has a sense of how to get on with life. Her father has spent his money foolishly and is apparently an example of the target audience of the eighteenth century version of Maxim magazine. He is a man who values appearance over content. His favorite reading is the List of Peers, which contains his name as a Baronet. The older sister, Elizabeth, is much the same as the father in her self regard despite the fact that at thirty-one, she is not married and there are no prospects in sight. The house in which they live is full of mirrors so that Sir Elliot and Elizabeth can gaze on their uniqueness while their money drains away.
Anne, on the other hand, takes care of business. She is not particularly happy living with her father and sister, but she makes the best of a rather dreary situation. Imagine yourself living with a couple of people who considered themselves to be supermodels and thought the world owed them a living because they cut fine figures (in their own minds).
I won't bother to recount the plot of the story because, to be honest, you should have read it by now. But here are the things that are good about Anne Elliot. She does what has to be done. She respects her family even if she doesn't like them much. She doesn't allow herself to be turned by flattering words. She regrets some past actions, but doesn't dwell on them. She sees through the surface to the core most of the time. She is able to overlook a lapse of a man she loves (Captain Wentworth) and see that a life cannot be defined by a stumble. This may be due to the fact that she realizes that she has stumbled.
I assess Jane Austen's characters using what I call the Ukulele Test. Imagine, for a moment, that each of the characters, in turn, come upon a servant or a beau playing a ukulele:
Elizabeth Bennett: "How amusing. It's too bad it's not a violin."
Elinor Dashwood: "Huh?"
MaryAnne Dashwood: "How romantic! It's so nobly savage!"
Emma Woodhouse: "I wonder if there are any wahines in the county I can hook this fellow up with. Or maybe Jane Fairfax will do."
Fanny Price, shyly tapping her foot to the music: "I wonder if he can play 'Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending?'"
Anne Elliot: "Five foot two, eyes of blue, hootchy, hootchy, hootchy koo. Has anybody seen my gaaaaal?"
Anne Elliot takes life as it is. She's been knocked down, albeit she's not living in Gin Lane turning tricks for a sixpence. But in the Austen world she's been badly served by her family and best friend. While she doesn't smile about it, she gets on with it. She's the most realistic, in the modern sense, of the Austen characters, and I think that she is probably a reflection of the author in later life. And Anne ends up marrying a sailor: not always a bad thing. The ever lovely Lady Nib married a swab jockey who had no percentage in a prize and has not complained overmuch.
If you have neither the time nor inclination to read the book Persuasion you may want to consider watching the video starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds (the man born to have sideburns). It's not quite as faithful to the book as is the old BBC version, but it captures the sense of the book better.
Next week: Who knows?
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Freaks
There was a time when, not far from Bloody Nib Manor, there was a seaside amusement park called the Pike. It was, I assume, since I've never been to New York, the California version of Coney Island. It was a place where one would go if one had a desire to ride a roller coaster that occasionally sent a car into the Pacific, throw balls at a shy in exchange for a cheap ashtray, get one's fortune told, get a tattoo or see a freak. It was mildly disreputable but not so disreputable as to keep families away on a summer's afternoon in search of a cooling sea breeze and a corndog.
Several times, as a child, your faithful correspondent was taken to the Pike by Earl Nib. And each time yours expressed an interest in seeing the freaks. Now, understand, the freaks at the Pike were pretty mild by freak standards. There were such anomolies as the fat lady, electro-girl, crocodile boy, bearded lady and rubber man, among others. The pater, in his wisdom, would reply that it was not the done thing to stare at those less fortunate than one. The Countess Nib, when receiving entreaties to see the freaks, maintained that only savages engaged in such behavior. Thus, as result, yours truly has never had much of a taste for gazing upon freaks.
Now, instead of good, honest physical freaks, we are inundated with emotional and psychological freaks. On the Oprah Winfrey program we're presented with weak sisters who have suffered savage beatings from boyfriends for "love" when they should have followed the example of Emily Dickinson and become spinster writers of questionable poetry. Jerry Springer has featured such things as incest, trans-sexuality and incestuous trans-sexuality. Maury Povitch has championed the desire of a young woman to follow her aunt's career as a porn star while denigrating the woman's mother's expressions of shock and disdain.
In other words, Lobster Boy, Wolf Boy and Pocket Venus are in Florida collecting unemployment while the freaks with invisible maladies are raking in the long green on television.
Which brings us to Michael Jackson. The fellow seems to have managed to combine the aspects of physical freakishness with psychological freakishness. He appears to be not only a black man trying to become a white woman, but, if his various accusers are to be believed, he has a taste for pederasty.
A jury is now deliberating his guilt or non-guilt in a case involving ten charges ranging from the molestation of a young by to giving booze to said boy.
The whole case is tiresome simply because of the excess of media coverage. Legal analysts spend much too much time trying to second guess the jury or explaining the obvious. One would think that the Michael Jackson case is tantamount with the Cuban Missle Crisis.
The more interesting thing, from the viewpoint of the Manor, is the coverage of the Michael Jackson fans who have gathered in front of the courthouse in support of their champion. These are people who apparently have a skewed sense of values and reality. Instead of getting on with their lives they've decided to protest the innocence of a person who is nothing more than a hired entertainer and who has no more loyalty to them than the next dollar they spend on his product. One can only write off their collective psyches as somewhat bent. They are, in a sense, freaks who support the arch-freak.
The various media, on the other hand, have shown themselves to be less than civilized in their interest in the case and in the fans. They are pointing at, and tittering behind their hands, at the freaks (Jackson and fans) in the "cause" of news dissemination. And why? Well, guilty or not, Jackson is a freak and his fans, by their behaviour, are mini-freaks. People like to stare at freaks. And there is money to be made. So what we have is the media openly doing the thing that was considered "not done" in polite society in previous decades, and making money from it. One could say that those who have a fascination with freaks are freaks themselves. It's just that, as psychologically off-kilter the Jackson courthouse kook is, at least he or she is openly so. The guy or gal with the microphone sneering while reporting on them day after day after day with enthusiasm just hides their fetish better.
It all reminds me of a party that silly cow Anais Nin had back in the sixties. The theme of the party was Come As Your Madness. Jackson's madness is pederasty. His devoted fans madness is Jackson. And the media's madnesses are ratings and "my fame."
You may ask, "Well, Hitz, do you think that Michael Jackson is innocent of the charges leveled against him?" To be short, the guy is, in my opinion, guilty of using more than one boy as a catamite and he should have been brought up long ago. But isn't it interesting that one the priests in the Catholic priest pederasty scandal of recent memory had, as far as we know, many more victims than did Jackson, and yet the press wasn't camping out at his rectory. But a fall from grace isn't as interesting to the media as is a deeper burrowing into the base. Especially when there is big money involved and to be made.
Several times, as a child, your faithful correspondent was taken to the Pike by Earl Nib. And each time yours expressed an interest in seeing the freaks. Now, understand, the freaks at the Pike were pretty mild by freak standards. There were such anomolies as the fat lady, electro-girl, crocodile boy, bearded lady and rubber man, among others. The pater, in his wisdom, would reply that it was not the done thing to stare at those less fortunate than one. The Countess Nib, when receiving entreaties to see the freaks, maintained that only savages engaged in such behavior. Thus, as result, yours truly has never had much of a taste for gazing upon freaks.
Now, instead of good, honest physical freaks, we are inundated with emotional and psychological freaks. On the Oprah Winfrey program we're presented with weak sisters who have suffered savage beatings from boyfriends for "love" when they should have followed the example of Emily Dickinson and become spinster writers of questionable poetry. Jerry Springer has featured such things as incest, trans-sexuality and incestuous trans-sexuality. Maury Povitch has championed the desire of a young woman to follow her aunt's career as a porn star while denigrating the woman's mother's expressions of shock and disdain.
In other words, Lobster Boy, Wolf Boy and Pocket Venus are in Florida collecting unemployment while the freaks with invisible maladies are raking in the long green on television.
Which brings us to Michael Jackson. The fellow seems to have managed to combine the aspects of physical freakishness with psychological freakishness. He appears to be not only a black man trying to become a white woman, but, if his various accusers are to be believed, he has a taste for pederasty.
A jury is now deliberating his guilt or non-guilt in a case involving ten charges ranging from the molestation of a young by to giving booze to said boy.
The whole case is tiresome simply because of the excess of media coverage. Legal analysts spend much too much time trying to second guess the jury or explaining the obvious. One would think that the Michael Jackson case is tantamount with the Cuban Missle Crisis.
The more interesting thing, from the viewpoint of the Manor, is the coverage of the Michael Jackson fans who have gathered in front of the courthouse in support of their champion. These are people who apparently have a skewed sense of values and reality. Instead of getting on with their lives they've decided to protest the innocence of a person who is nothing more than a hired entertainer and who has no more loyalty to them than the next dollar they spend on his product. One can only write off their collective psyches as somewhat bent. They are, in a sense, freaks who support the arch-freak.
The various media, on the other hand, have shown themselves to be less than civilized in their interest in the case and in the fans. They are pointing at, and tittering behind their hands, at the freaks (Jackson and fans) in the "cause" of news dissemination. And why? Well, guilty or not, Jackson is a freak and his fans, by their behaviour, are mini-freaks. People like to stare at freaks. And there is money to be made. So what we have is the media openly doing the thing that was considered "not done" in polite society in previous decades, and making money from it. One could say that those who have a fascination with freaks are freaks themselves. It's just that, as psychologically off-kilter the Jackson courthouse kook is, at least he or she is openly so. The guy or gal with the microphone sneering while reporting on them day after day after day with enthusiasm just hides their fetish better.
It all reminds me of a party that silly cow Anais Nin had back in the sixties. The theme of the party was Come As Your Madness. Jackson's madness is pederasty. His devoted fans madness is Jackson. And the media's madnesses are ratings and "my fame."
You may ask, "Well, Hitz, do you think that Michael Jackson is innocent of the charges leveled against him?" To be short, the guy is, in my opinion, guilty of using more than one boy as a catamite and he should have been brought up long ago. But isn't it interesting that one the priests in the Catholic priest pederasty scandal of recent memory had, as far as we know, many more victims than did Jackson, and yet the press wasn't camping out at his rectory. But a fall from grace isn't as interesting to the media as is a deeper burrowing into the base. Especially when there is big money involved and to be made.
Whither Men's Magazines?
My days of tonsorial splendour are long past. The very act of going to the local barbershop to get a haircut has become an infrequent chore. I find myself much more comfortable in a shaggy and hirsute state than sitting in modern version of a barber's chair at the local "hair stylist" while someone I really don't know stands behind me with a sharp pair of scissors cutting my hair the way he or she thinks it should be instead of the way I want it to be cut.
But, as a young sprite, my trips to the barbershop were a twice monthly event. And while I never enjoyed having my hair cut, I did enjoy waiting my turn because it gave me a chance to read the magazines the shop subscribed to for the customers.
At that time, a barbershop was a man's domain. It was expected that boys be brought into the shop by their fathers. A woman who brought her son in was a oddity. It either meant that the woman was divorced or the boy was a mama's boy; neither of which was considered a desirable condition for a boy. The shops sold three types of hair oil; Vitalis, Wildroot and Lucky Tiger. And there was one brand of butch wax for the trendy types who wore flattops; Three Roses. It was an old time masculine atmosphere where cigarettes were smoked, off-color jokes were told, black coffee was drunk and baseball was on the radio during the summer.
The magazines at the barbershops were men's magazines that fell into three categories; sports, outdoor sports and adventure. At that time professional sports, except for baseball, had not reached the popularity that they since have. The Sporting News (the Bible of Baseball) was sure to be found with traces of clipped hair in its pages. Sports Illustrated was iffy. Professional athletics were, at that time, of not much interest to your faithful correspondent. Outdoor Life and Field and Stream were sure bets to be found. Neither of those journals were of much interest to me since the only hunting I'd ever done was stalking the odd English sparrow with a slingshot and fishing was an experience of sitting in the hot sun watching the fish swim past my worm. It was the collection of adventure magazines that made the sound of Wahl hair clippers bearable. Argosy, Saga, Stag, Men's Bluebook and Men Only. Those were the magazines that opened a world to yours truly. Playboy and Esquire were considered a little too risque for the average barbershop in those days, but we had, even on the West Coast, Midwestern values in those days.
Argosy and Saga were the topline men's magazines. They were the Saturday Review of men's magazines. Stag, Men's Bluebook and Men Only which were more on a Life magazine or National Enquirer level. The magazines, while having a little mild cheesecake (Jayne Mansfield in a bikini or Stella Stevens wearing less than her mother would have liked, but not so little as to get arrested at the beach), emphasized adventure, conflict and a certain stoicism. They were full of real life stories such as, "My Twelve Years in the Foreign Legion", "Surviving the Alaskan Wilderness with Only a Can of Hamm's and a Church Key" and "I Arrested Tokyo Rose." The last was usually illustrated with a photo of a woman who looked much more like Joan Chen than Eva Toguri. Technical articles were things like "Tune Your Car with a Matchbook Cover and a Pocketknife." The magazines had short stories of the Jack London type i.e., man against nature, man against man, man against himself. And there was usually a short story about a dog or horse doing great things such as routing Germans out of the trenches during World War I or stomping rattlesnakes. The magazines were, in their own way, about conflict and the conflict of being a man in a hostile world. There was no machismo attitude and, really, there wasn't much sexism. Being a man was, in a sense, pitching oneself against other men or nature. Women were the civilizing force, and thus were regarded somewhat suspiciously, but they were a sort of dessert to a rough life. Maybe they were sexist, but not in a way that is now commonly understood. The magazines reflected a sort of Hemingwayesque ethos without the excesses.
Robin Maugham, the nephew of the unfortunately forgotten writer W. Somerset Maugham, once wrote an article for Men Only about his experience of buying a slave in the Sudan and then setting the man free, much to the man's confusion. There was a sort of social conscious that didn't stick itself in one's face. The magazines reflected a particularly American outlook of life. All men were, in essence, equal. A man was expected to make, as far as possible, his own way, and try to help others make their own way. An enemy, usually a German, a Japanese, a North Korean, a Russian or a Chinese, while considered brainwashed, a bounder or just plain stupid, was considered another man capable of reformation. In this way, despite their occasionally risque content, they were, in a sense, Christian magazines: man is sinful by nature and is capable of redemption.
The last time I was at the barbershop, after looking over the magazine selection, I wondered if I hadn't stumbled into the beauty parlor. The magazines consisted of Sports Illustrated (despite the swimsuit issue, a poor second to the Sporting News), FHM, Maxim, GQ and some other silly thing. The men's magazines had been replaced by lads' magazines. The stories featured on the covers were things like "Six Pack Abs in Two Weeks", "Finding the Style for You", "Should You Shave your Body?" and "Your Orgasm: Is it Good for Her?" In other words, the magazines that are supposed to be for men had become Cosmopolitan for people with external ganglia. While there were a few photos of pretty girls wearing not much, most of the magazines had features about how to look "good" i.e., pretty, how to be sensitive, how to be cool. There wasn't a whole lot about the experience of being a man battling his way through the world. Consider the fact that the Drinks section of one of the magazines featured recipes for mixing the "perfect martini", "the best margueritta", "the divine tequila sunrise." It was enough to gag a maggot.
In the great days of Argosy and Saga the only advice in the Drinks section were questions of how many drops of water to put in a whisky and water, or whether gin and tonic was a drink for girls. Now the lads' mags give recipes for drinks that were at one time considered women's drinks. And the recipes are intended for the consumption by men.
Since the last presidential primary I've been hearing this word "metrosexual." Howard Dean said that he was a metrosexual. Metrosexuality is considered by some of our national scribes to be a good thing. I've neither read nor heard a definition of metrosexual, but I assume that it means a man of a somewhat amorphous sexuality as reflected by Maxim, FHM, et al. In other words, the contemporary man is expected to become a precious of the 18th century French type; narcissistic, mincing, prancing. And the guy who fights the world to provide for his and his own is considered a dumb lug.
It's enough to make a guy give up haircuts.
But, as a young sprite, my trips to the barbershop were a twice monthly event. And while I never enjoyed having my hair cut, I did enjoy waiting my turn because it gave me a chance to read the magazines the shop subscribed to for the customers.
At that time, a barbershop was a man's domain. It was expected that boys be brought into the shop by their fathers. A woman who brought her son in was a oddity. It either meant that the woman was divorced or the boy was a mama's boy; neither of which was considered a desirable condition for a boy. The shops sold three types of hair oil; Vitalis, Wildroot and Lucky Tiger. And there was one brand of butch wax for the trendy types who wore flattops; Three Roses. It was an old time masculine atmosphere where cigarettes were smoked, off-color jokes were told, black coffee was drunk and baseball was on the radio during the summer.
The magazines at the barbershops were men's magazines that fell into three categories; sports, outdoor sports and adventure. At that time professional sports, except for baseball, had not reached the popularity that they since have. The Sporting News (the Bible of Baseball) was sure to be found with traces of clipped hair in its pages. Sports Illustrated was iffy. Professional athletics were, at that time, of not much interest to your faithful correspondent. Outdoor Life and Field and Stream were sure bets to be found. Neither of those journals were of much interest to me since the only hunting I'd ever done was stalking the odd English sparrow with a slingshot and fishing was an experience of sitting in the hot sun watching the fish swim past my worm. It was the collection of adventure magazines that made the sound of Wahl hair clippers bearable. Argosy, Saga, Stag, Men's Bluebook and Men Only. Those were the magazines that opened a world to yours truly. Playboy and Esquire were considered a little too risque for the average barbershop in those days, but we had, even on the West Coast, Midwestern values in those days.
Argosy and Saga were the topline men's magazines. They were the Saturday Review of men's magazines. Stag, Men's Bluebook and Men Only which were more on a Life magazine or National Enquirer level. The magazines, while having a little mild cheesecake (Jayne Mansfield in a bikini or Stella Stevens wearing less than her mother would have liked, but not so little as to get arrested at the beach), emphasized adventure, conflict and a certain stoicism. They were full of real life stories such as, "My Twelve Years in the Foreign Legion", "Surviving the Alaskan Wilderness with Only a Can of Hamm's and a Church Key" and "I Arrested Tokyo Rose." The last was usually illustrated with a photo of a woman who looked much more like Joan Chen than Eva Toguri. Technical articles were things like "Tune Your Car with a Matchbook Cover and a Pocketknife." The magazines had short stories of the Jack London type i.e., man against nature, man against man, man against himself. And there was usually a short story about a dog or horse doing great things such as routing Germans out of the trenches during World War I or stomping rattlesnakes. The magazines were, in their own way, about conflict and the conflict of being a man in a hostile world. There was no machismo attitude and, really, there wasn't much sexism. Being a man was, in a sense, pitching oneself against other men or nature. Women were the civilizing force, and thus were regarded somewhat suspiciously, but they were a sort of dessert to a rough life. Maybe they were sexist, but not in a way that is now commonly understood. The magazines reflected a sort of Hemingwayesque ethos without the excesses.
Robin Maugham, the nephew of the unfortunately forgotten writer W. Somerset Maugham, once wrote an article for Men Only about his experience of buying a slave in the Sudan and then setting the man free, much to the man's confusion. There was a sort of social conscious that didn't stick itself in one's face. The magazines reflected a particularly American outlook of life. All men were, in essence, equal. A man was expected to make, as far as possible, his own way, and try to help others make their own way. An enemy, usually a German, a Japanese, a North Korean, a Russian or a Chinese, while considered brainwashed, a bounder or just plain stupid, was considered another man capable of reformation. In this way, despite their occasionally risque content, they were, in a sense, Christian magazines: man is sinful by nature and is capable of redemption.
The last time I was at the barbershop, after looking over the magazine selection, I wondered if I hadn't stumbled into the beauty parlor. The magazines consisted of Sports Illustrated (despite the swimsuit issue, a poor second to the Sporting News), FHM, Maxim, GQ and some other silly thing. The men's magazines had been replaced by lads' magazines. The stories featured on the covers were things like "Six Pack Abs in Two Weeks", "Finding the Style for You", "Should You Shave your Body?" and "Your Orgasm: Is it Good for Her?" In other words, the magazines that are supposed to be for men had become Cosmopolitan for people with external ganglia. While there were a few photos of pretty girls wearing not much, most of the magazines had features about how to look "good" i.e., pretty, how to be sensitive, how to be cool. There wasn't a whole lot about the experience of being a man battling his way through the world. Consider the fact that the Drinks section of one of the magazines featured recipes for mixing the "perfect martini", "the best margueritta", "the divine tequila sunrise." It was enough to gag a maggot.
In the great days of Argosy and Saga the only advice in the Drinks section were questions of how many drops of water to put in a whisky and water, or whether gin and tonic was a drink for girls. Now the lads' mags give recipes for drinks that were at one time considered women's drinks. And the recipes are intended for the consumption by men.
Since the last presidential primary I've been hearing this word "metrosexual." Howard Dean said that he was a metrosexual. Metrosexuality is considered by some of our national scribes to be a good thing. I've neither read nor heard a definition of metrosexual, but I assume that it means a man of a somewhat amorphous sexuality as reflected by Maxim, FHM, et al. In other words, the contemporary man is expected to become a precious of the 18th century French type; narcissistic, mincing, prancing. And the guy who fights the world to provide for his and his own is considered a dumb lug.
It's enough to make a guy give up haircuts.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
This Says It All
I'm not a big fan of poetry unless it rhymes, but at the Gates of Vienna there is a poem and analysis of the poem that makes sense to me:Gates of Vienna: Wicked And Wise
Hyenas are filthy creatures.
Hyenas are filthy creatures.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Finally!
A lot of bad things happen in the world. A lot of bad things happen in the United States. A lot of bad things happen in families. And a lot of bad things have always happened in the those entities. It's the nature of life on this terrestial ball.
In the last twenty or so years it has been common for the news to report that when a disaster or heinous crime occurs "grief counselors" have been dispatched to the scene to counsel the survivors or witnesses. Grief counselors were even sent to the emotional rescue of tsunami survivors.
Call me skeptical, or even cynical, but I've always had doubts about the value of such services. Grief counseling always seemed to me to be an exercise in busy-bodyism and a form of modern day hired mourners. The difference being that it is probably more cost efficient to hire professional mourners than it is to engage the services of a grief counselor. The best grief counselor, to my little mind, has always been a family member or a friend. In other words, someone who knows one instead of a hired buddy.
A recent study in the Netherlands shows that perhaps the grief counselor racket is a racket:Telegraph News Grief counseling a waste of time, say psychologists But you know how it is. Where there is money to be made, money will be made.
In the last twenty or so years it has been common for the news to report that when a disaster or heinous crime occurs "grief counselors" have been dispatched to the scene to counsel the survivors or witnesses. Grief counselors were even sent to the emotional rescue of tsunami survivors.
Call me skeptical, or even cynical, but I've always had doubts about the value of such services. Grief counseling always seemed to me to be an exercise in busy-bodyism and a form of modern day hired mourners. The difference being that it is probably more cost efficient to hire professional mourners than it is to engage the services of a grief counselor. The best grief counselor, to my little mind, has always been a family member or a friend. In other words, someone who knows one instead of a hired buddy.
A recent study in the Netherlands shows that perhaps the grief counselor racket is a racket:Telegraph News Grief counseling a waste of time, say psychologists But you know how it is. Where there is money to be made, money will be made.
A Hold on Anne Elliot
Last week I wrote that I'd be doing an appreciation of Jane Austen's Anne Elliot, the heroine from Persuasion. Due to several factors here at Bloody Nib Manor I'm afraid I'm going to have to put it off until next week.
I really didn't have anything profound to say, anyway.
I really didn't have anything profound to say, anyway.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
The New Age of Unionism
Doug McIntyre, the morning radio talk show host on KABC 790 in Los Angeles, has several times made an observation that your faithful correspondent has decided to co-opt.
But first some background information. For most of his life, yours has not been a supporter of labor unions despite the fact his grandfather, grandmother (ILGWU), uncle (Teamsters), brother (IATSE), father-in-law (Teamsters) and lovely wife (AFL-CIO) were/are either union members or union supporters. My only contact with a union was twelve years ago at the shop I was then working cut the machinists' wages 20% because the owner was an incompetent and greedy bastard. There was a union certification election for the International Association of Machinists (a bad choice in my opinion, though I voted in favor of certification). The certification failed and I left the shop for another (non-union) shop for less money. But I was, and am, working for a greedy bastard who has some modicum of knowledge about how to run a machine shop.
Having written the above boring preface let's go back to one of my favorite sayings. "The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists." And thereby lies (or is it lays?) the tail (or is it tale?). There will be, I predict, a new age of unionism. And I, for one, will support it. Individual initiative, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, nose to the grindstone, all sound great if one is given the chance to act as an individual, has a bootstrap or a grindstone. The problem is with capital and the fact that it is the capitalists who drive wages down or eliminate jobs through either outsourcing work or hiring illegal immigrants.
There are two cases in point that illustrate the problem. Housing construction and meat packing. The trades involved in housing construction used to be good paying jobs. Carpenters, roofers, dry wall hangers all made good livings. And by good livings I mean the ability to support a family of one wife and 2.2 children and buy a house and not have to clip coupons out of the local newspaper to buy groceries. Now those jobs have been taken, in the Southwestern US, by illegal immigrants who work much cheaper, but who, because of their lower wages, live ten men to an apartment designed for three and are willing to do so because Mexico is such a cesspool. Meanwhile, the union carpenters, roofers and drywall hangers are collecting unemployment because they're been displaced by people who are in the US illegally.
Meat packing (the slaughtering and butchering of beef, pork, lamb and poultry) used to be one of the highest paid blue collar jobs simply because of the danger involved in the activity. The advent of illegal aliens has driven the wages way down. No longer can a meat packer expect to live a working middle class life. He finds himself at the bottom of the rung in income for the same reason that the roofer does.
These are jobs that Americans are willing to do (despite the statements of President Bush). They are jobs that Americans have always done. But they are jobs that, because illegals have undercut the prevailing wage, that Americans can no longer afford to do. The result is that you have fifty year old men attempting to learn new. low paying trades, attempting to go into real estate or just giving up in despair.
The free trade freaks and elitist conservatives sound the clarion of College Education. Let's face it. Not everyone wants a college education. Some people are perfectly happy laying a good roof, doing a good job of framing a house or building a road. And besides, a college education guarantees nothing unless one desires to become a bureaucrat. Boeing, for example, has been known to outsource its engineering to India resulting in the laying off of aeronautical engineers in the US. Canadian film crews make television programs that are supposed to represent US life in Canada. I am waiting for the day when some one like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity goes to his contract negotiations and finds that he's in a bad spot because the radio network has decided to replace him with someone with conservative views who works out of Vera Cruz or Bombay. Then the screaming will start.
The point of all this bloviation is simply this: Considering the fact that the differences in income between those who run businesses and those who actually put out the sweat of labor continues to grow because the businesses do not give the working stiff a square deal the working stiff will kick. Businesses deal from the bottom of the deck by using either illegal immigrant or off-shore labor. There will come a day when the clerk at the Wal-Mart who used to make a good living as a proper gardener (not just a lawn chopper), the son of an illegal immigrant meat cutter working as a meat cutter, will decide that he or she is getting a raw deal; the aerospace worker will see an American airliner being built in China. And they will all consider the possibility of collective bargaining. And on that day the big businessmen will wake up, and while drinking their morning latte' (and what kind of man drinks latte' in the morning instead of black coffee or whisky?) he read in the business section of the local rag that a Wal-Mart in Iowa has voted for the certification of a union, and he will know that a new age has dawned. Once a Wal-Mart has unionized it's a waste of time sticking a finger in the dike. The union tide will be unstoppable. And the guy or gal spitting out their latte' in surprise will have no one to blame but themselves because they created the new san culottes.
The only question will be, "What kind of unionism?" There are three possibilities. Guild unionism, trade and industrial unionism, and the One Big Union. I prefer guild unionism simply because I am proud of my artisanship. Too many knuckleheads have gotten into my craft, and it wouldn't be a bad idea if there were a body to separate the wheat from the chaff. The second option is the One Big Union, which, while smacking of socialism (which I dislike) gives the worker a voice that the ballot box does not. Nothing gets a politician's attention like the loss of money and production on a nationwide scale. The least attractive option is trade and industrial unionism (the AFL-CIO model) simply because it is the most open to corruption and co-opting by politicians and businessmen.
Is it good for America? Well, is a working force that can honestly afford to live comfortably and well good for America? Or are an upper and working class based on the nineteenth century British model good for America? Or is wage slavery good for America? I think the first option the more classically American.
And while I'm stealing, in part from Doug McIntyre, I might as well steal something else while I'm at it.
The United States is a signatory to the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which establishes what amounts to a Common Market between Canada, the US and Mexico. The result has been many US jobs being exported to Mexico and a few to Canada. Now President Bush (and to be truthful, despite his war on terrorism he's wearing out his welcome here at Bloody Nib Manor because he's not maintaining the home turf as he should) is pushing a thing called the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). It would establish a larger free trade area than NAFTA. If CAFTA is approved in Congress the next step is HAFTA because the average American working stiff is going to hafta try to get a job at McDonald's to keep body and soul together because his job went to El Salvador.
But first some background information. For most of his life, yours has not been a supporter of labor unions despite the fact his grandfather, grandmother (ILGWU), uncle (Teamsters), brother (IATSE), father-in-law (Teamsters) and lovely wife (AFL-CIO) were/are either union members or union supporters. My only contact with a union was twelve years ago at the shop I was then working cut the machinists' wages 20% because the owner was an incompetent and greedy bastard. There was a union certification election for the International Association of Machinists (a bad choice in my opinion, though I voted in favor of certification). The certification failed and I left the shop for another (non-union) shop for less money. But I was, and am, working for a greedy bastard who has some modicum of knowledge about how to run a machine shop.
Having written the above boring preface let's go back to one of my favorite sayings. "The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists." And thereby lies (or is it lays?) the tail (or is it tale?). There will be, I predict, a new age of unionism. And I, for one, will support it. Individual initiative, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, nose to the grindstone, all sound great if one is given the chance to act as an individual, has a bootstrap or a grindstone. The problem is with capital and the fact that it is the capitalists who drive wages down or eliminate jobs through either outsourcing work or hiring illegal immigrants.
There are two cases in point that illustrate the problem. Housing construction and meat packing. The trades involved in housing construction used to be good paying jobs. Carpenters, roofers, dry wall hangers all made good livings. And by good livings I mean the ability to support a family of one wife and 2.2 children and buy a house and not have to clip coupons out of the local newspaper to buy groceries. Now those jobs have been taken, in the Southwestern US, by illegal immigrants who work much cheaper, but who, because of their lower wages, live ten men to an apartment designed for three and are willing to do so because Mexico is such a cesspool. Meanwhile, the union carpenters, roofers and drywall hangers are collecting unemployment because they're been displaced by people who are in the US illegally.
Meat packing (the slaughtering and butchering of beef, pork, lamb and poultry) used to be one of the highest paid blue collar jobs simply because of the danger involved in the activity. The advent of illegal aliens has driven the wages way down. No longer can a meat packer expect to live a working middle class life. He finds himself at the bottom of the rung in income for the same reason that the roofer does.
These are jobs that Americans are willing to do (despite the statements of President Bush). They are jobs that Americans have always done. But they are jobs that, because illegals have undercut the prevailing wage, that Americans can no longer afford to do. The result is that you have fifty year old men attempting to learn new. low paying trades, attempting to go into real estate or just giving up in despair.
The free trade freaks and elitist conservatives sound the clarion of College Education. Let's face it. Not everyone wants a college education. Some people are perfectly happy laying a good roof, doing a good job of framing a house or building a road. And besides, a college education guarantees nothing unless one desires to become a bureaucrat. Boeing, for example, has been known to outsource its engineering to India resulting in the laying off of aeronautical engineers in the US. Canadian film crews make television programs that are supposed to represent US life in Canada. I am waiting for the day when some one like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity goes to his contract negotiations and finds that he's in a bad spot because the radio network has decided to replace him with someone with conservative views who works out of Vera Cruz or Bombay. Then the screaming will start.
The point of all this bloviation is simply this: Considering the fact that the differences in income between those who run businesses and those who actually put out the sweat of labor continues to grow because the businesses do not give the working stiff a square deal the working stiff will kick. Businesses deal from the bottom of the deck by using either illegal immigrant or off-shore labor. There will come a day when the clerk at the Wal-Mart who used to make a good living as a proper gardener (not just a lawn chopper), the son of an illegal immigrant meat cutter working as a meat cutter, will decide that he or she is getting a raw deal; the aerospace worker will see an American airliner being built in China. And they will all consider the possibility of collective bargaining. And on that day the big businessmen will wake up, and while drinking their morning latte' (and what kind of man drinks latte' in the morning instead of black coffee or whisky?) he read in the business section of the local rag that a Wal-Mart in Iowa has voted for the certification of a union, and he will know that a new age has dawned. Once a Wal-Mart has unionized it's a waste of time sticking a finger in the dike. The union tide will be unstoppable. And the guy or gal spitting out their latte' in surprise will have no one to blame but themselves because they created the new san culottes.
The only question will be, "What kind of unionism?" There are three possibilities. Guild unionism, trade and industrial unionism, and the One Big Union. I prefer guild unionism simply because I am proud of my artisanship. Too many knuckleheads have gotten into my craft, and it wouldn't be a bad idea if there were a body to separate the wheat from the chaff. The second option is the One Big Union, which, while smacking of socialism (which I dislike) gives the worker a voice that the ballot box does not. Nothing gets a politician's attention like the loss of money and production on a nationwide scale. The least attractive option is trade and industrial unionism (the AFL-CIO model) simply because it is the most open to corruption and co-opting by politicians and businessmen.
Is it good for America? Well, is a working force that can honestly afford to live comfortably and well good for America? Or are an upper and working class based on the nineteenth century British model good for America? Or is wage slavery good for America? I think the first option the more classically American.
And while I'm stealing, in part from Doug McIntyre, I might as well steal something else while I'm at it.
The United States is a signatory to the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which establishes what amounts to a Common Market between Canada, the US and Mexico. The result has been many US jobs being exported to Mexico and a few to Canada. Now President Bush (and to be truthful, despite his war on terrorism he's wearing out his welcome here at Bloody Nib Manor because he's not maintaining the home turf as he should) is pushing a thing called the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). It would establish a larger free trade area than NAFTA. If CAFTA is approved in Congress the next step is HAFTA because the average American working stiff is going to hafta try to get a job at McDonald's to keep body and soul together because his job went to El Salvador.
Meanwhile, the Christian World Remains Calm
The Pentagon has released their findings of an investigation of abuses of the Koran at the Guantanamo Prison. The study found five incidents of the Koran being handled in what the Pentagon perceives to be an improper manner. Two of the incidents were deemed to be purposeful and three were deemed to be accidental. At least one civilian interrogator was fired from his job after it was found that he threw a copy of the Koran on the floor. None of the incidents involved attempting to flush the book down the commode (a sure way to get a plumber some work). The various news media are suffering from the vapors over the story because Newsweek was almost right.
Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian government continues to confiscate and shred the Bibles of those entering that lovely land:Saudis Shred Bibles, Rights Campaigners Claim -- 05/19/2005 . The reaction of the Christian world? Not much.
Could it be that even the most hot fundamentalist Christian is more secure in his religion than the average Mohammedan? We call the Bible the Holy Bible, but the actual physical books are not holy. It is what is in the books that is holy. The Islamic world, on the other hand, seems to believe that each and every Koran (at least those written in Arabic, and any Muslim who knows anything about his religion will tell you that the Koran is really only true when written in Arabic) is a holy artifact not unlike the way that detritus left behind by Elvis Presley (i.e., toenail clippings, chewed gum, pill bottles, etc.) is considered holy and venerable by Elvoids.
But perhaps your faithful correspondent is just not sensitive enough to cultural differences. And your faithful correspondent just doesn't care if he isn't. Multiculturalism is for people who can't make up their minds at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store.
Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian government continues to confiscate and shred the Bibles of those entering that lovely land:Saudis Shred Bibles, Rights Campaigners Claim -- 05/19/2005 . The reaction of the Christian world? Not much.
Could it be that even the most hot fundamentalist Christian is more secure in his religion than the average Mohammedan? We call the Bible the Holy Bible, but the actual physical books are not holy. It is what is in the books that is holy. The Islamic world, on the other hand, seems to believe that each and every Koran (at least those written in Arabic, and any Muslim who knows anything about his religion will tell you that the Koran is really only true when written in Arabic) is a holy artifact not unlike the way that detritus left behind by Elvis Presley (i.e., toenail clippings, chewed gum, pill bottles, etc.) is considered holy and venerable by Elvoids.
But perhaps your faithful correspondent is just not sensitive enough to cultural differences. And your faithful correspondent just doesn't care if he isn't. Multiculturalism is for people who can't make up their minds at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store.
Friday, June 03, 2005
I Don't Know What to Make of These
There have been folk Masses, jazz Masses and liturgical dance, but this really takes the cake:
Pastor Paul T. McCain
Cyberbrethren: Clowning Around with Holy Things
Or maybe it takes the pie in the face.
And there have been various modernizations of the Gospels ranging from "inclusive" versions to Cockney versions, but now there is something completely new:New Bible Shows Christ as a Woman, God as Female 2 .
Some people seem to have too much time on their hands.
Pastor Paul T. McCain
Cyberbrethren: Clowning Around with Holy Things
Or maybe it takes the pie in the face.
And there have been various modernizations of the Gospels ranging from "inclusive" versions to Cockney versions, but now there is something completely new:New Bible Shows Christ as a Woman, God as Female 2 .
Some people seem to have too much time on their hands.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Belmont Club is back on line and the new link is on the link list.
I've also added a link to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's blog. Ms Ali is a Somali born member of the Dutch Parliament. She is one of the Dutch politicians currently living in hiding because of death threats from Islamic elements in the Netherlands. One of her "crimes" was to work with the late Theo Van Gogh on his film about the treatment of women in Islam. Mr. Van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim who took offense.
Ms Ali's website is written in Dutch, but there is a button to translate most of it into English.
I've also added a link to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's blog. Ms Ali is a Somali born member of the Dutch Parliament. She is one of the Dutch politicians currently living in hiding because of death threats from Islamic elements in the Netherlands. One of her "crimes" was to work with the late Theo Van Gogh on his film about the treatment of women in Islam. Mr. Van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim who took offense.
Ms Ali's website is written in Dutch, but there is a button to translate most of it into English.
More Jane
The latest issue of the National Review (June 6, 2005) includes a profile of British member of Parliament, Michael Gove. Mr. Gove is a writer by profession and a conservative by inclination. The article, in part, describes his journey from being a self preceived socialist to being a member of the Conservative Party.
But what is of interest to your faithful correspondent is the following:
But what is of interest to your faithful correspondent is the following:
"Gove also notes that he admired certain writers, well before realizing that he was responding to a sort of conservativism. He liked Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene ...and Jane Austen. 'People caricature it, but Austen's work was important to me, in that it recognizes the value of respecting ancestral wisdom. The fact that I responded to Austen predisposed me 20 years later to respond to Gertrude Himmelfarb,' the American historian and author of such books as The De-moralizatuion of Society."
Quick! Call Newsweek!
A French shoe manufacturer is producing a line of women's shoes featuring images of the Hindu god Rama on the toes:Lord Rama caught on wrong foot- The Times of India . A Hindu rights organization has called for a widespread -- not demonstrations or public protests -- letter writing campaign protesting what is considered to be a desecration. Where is the outrage? Calling for letter writing instead of rioting seems so civilized.
Meanwhile, the Islamic world carries on with its program of autocannibalism.
Tip o' the lid to Gates of Vienna .
Meanwhile, the Islamic world carries on with its program of autocannibalism.
Tip o' the lid to Gates of Vienna .
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