A Pilgrim’s Digression

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142178,00.html

I could not let this pass. Then I will officially be on hiatus.

A week and a half after Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Lee Pitts boasted that he worked with Army Specialist Thomas Wilson (search) to craft that tough question about armor on military vehicles for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Kuwait, Wilson now insists he came up with the question all by himself.

In an interview with Time magazine, Wilson says that after realizing only soldiers could ask questions, Pitts urged him to think of “intelligent questions.” So Wilson came up with the armor question and three others. He says Pitts suggested he find a “less brash way of asking the question.” But Wilson refused, insisting, “I wanted to make my point very clear.”

Do you think this will silence Limbaugh and his fellow wankers who insist Wilson’s question is illegitimate because he was prompted to ask it by a reporter? The quote is from Brit Hume’s “Grapevine” blog.

The time has come round again. Today is the day I must unfortunately put this blog on hiatus for the holidays. Oops, I mean, Christmas. My apologies to Mr. O’Reilly and the “Save Christmas!” blowhards.

I hesitate to fix a date for my return to the critic’s seat, since I may be able to squeeze in a post or two next week after Christmas. However, I may not write anything at all until I return from vacation January 3, 2005.

I’ve been thinking about what to write in this my last post of 2004. Unfortunately, 2005 looks to begin much the same as 2004: Americans dying in Iraq; George Bush, still the President; Democrats hopelessly demoralized; Osama Bin Laden alive and well.
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http://nytimes.com/2004/1…0safire.html?hp

In today’s op-ed for the New York Times, William Safire proposes a “sequel” to Phillip Roth’s novel The Plot Against America. Safire’s projection of “what if” turns on the question of what would of happened if President Bush had listened to Colin Powell and other “appeasers” and not chosen to invade Iraq.

Strictly on the level of Safire’s understanding of Roth’s novel, Safire gets a couple of things incorrect. He calls Roth’s novel a “satire,” which it decidedly is not; and he describes Charles A. Lindbergh with the harmless adjective “appeasing.” Roth’s character, President Lindbergh, was a good deal more than that; and the real Charles A. Lindbergh was somewhat more than “Nazi-appeasing” as well. After traveling to Germany and witnessing the might of Hitler’s military machine (and after being awarded the Iron Cross by Hermann Goerring himself), Lindbergh returned to the United States and said he believed in the good intentions of Adolf Hitler. Furthermore, he was so convinced of German military strength that he counselled the United States to stay out of war or face destruction.

And Lindbergh never did throw away that Nazi military decoration, even after Germany declared war on us.

That’s the real Charles Lindbergh. The fictional one is even more nefarious, all the while projecting his facade of down-home, Mid-West Americanism to fool the rubes in Topeka.
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For the past few weeks, ever since Thanksgiving, I have been taking a rather unexpected trip down memory lane. When I finished Graduate School in 1998, I stored boxes containing almost everything in my apartment in my future mother-in-law’s attic in Pittsburgh. My wife and I were married later that year, but I never retrieved my stuff, partly because there was so much of it.

When my wife’s family came to visit for Thanksgiving this year, they brought with them about six boxes of my stuff from the attic, mostly boxes of books. There are about fifteen more boxes—again, mostly books—still in the attic. It was wierd unpacking boxes from a past that seems as remote as the Dark Ages now. It was really like opening a time capsule from 1998; and while 1998 is really not that long ago, my life is so different now that it seems like it was another era.

Incidentally, in the spirit of digression, every time I have to unpack following a move, I am reminded of that old George Carlin comedy bit about the difference between “stuff” and “shit.” As Carlin explains it, when it belongs to you, it’s “stuff,” but when it belongs to someone else, “shit.” Thus, I unpack my “stuff” while complaining about all my wife’s “shit.”

Anyway…

I found amongst all my “stuff” a coffee mug from my early days as a Republican. It’s one of those “Official Presidential Drinking Mugs,” and it has a caricature of the first President Bush on it. “No Bushit” it says on the mug. It has become my new favorite coffee cup, purely for the irony of it.
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Like other controversial wars fought by the United States, the Spanish-American War began under false pretenses, was fought to achieve dubious goals, and though a resounding victory for American hegemony in the world, this victory came at the cost of another people’s blood and land.

When the U.S.S. Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor on April 25, 1898, Spain was a fading world power with only a few scattered colonies remaining of a once great empire. When representatives of the United States and Spain signed a peace treaty later that same year, on December 10, Spain was finished as an imperial power and the United States found itself the proud owner of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands. The war cost America about $250 million and 3000 lives, though only 10%, or 300, of those losses were from combat. The remaining 2700 dead were killed by tropical diseases.
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Here’s your time-killing, end-of-the-work-day link courtesy of Scrivenings:

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?brought to you by Quizilla

You will be smothered under a rug. You’re a little anti-social, and may want to start gaining new social skills by making prank phone calls.

It occurs to me that some fetishists might not mind this kind of death at all.

One reason I like the city is I am allowed to witness scenes such as this. Man arguing with transvestite girlfriend in front of D.C. Donut on Pennsylvania Avenue NE:

“Bitch, call me faggot!”

(The “woman” starts to walk away, down the sidewalk towards me; I can’t hear if she is saying anything) The man yells, “Bitch, come back here! Call me faggot. Come back here and kick (kiss?) my ass!”

I was walking towards them on my way to Starbucks; it was a little before seven this morning. One just does not witness scenes like these in small town America.

There are many reasons why I like the city. I’ve been meaning to compile a list for quite some time:
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141218,00.html

It may be a myth that George Bush was reelected by Evangelical Christians energized by moral issues, but Evangelical Christian leaders such as James Dobson and Jerry Falwell are accepting that myth as gospel.

Fox News yesterday quotes Falwell as saying, “We just experienced the greatest conservative victory in American history—we have never had a victory like Nov. 2—and it’s the most dangerous time for our movement ever.” “Dangerous,” Falwell says, because it could breed complacency. Falwell says he is going to revive his Moral Majority group, and “Between now and ‘08, we are going to be putting on state ballots family initiatives and controversial initiatives to awaken our people out to the polls.”
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http://imdb.com/title/tt0362227/

Recently at dhlagren and stormfront, we have been debating the Christian meaning of the Spielberg film The Terminal. Rather than posting another lengthy reply to one of their blogs, I thought I’d write my response here.

At one point, Todd asked, “I think all of this works, but how does it add up politically? What does this film say about Christ and the world we live—about Homeland Security? Or about the difference between the religion of Bush and that of [Viktor]?”

I’ll offer some suggestions for a historical-political reading. It’s interesting to note that if you blink, you miss the one direct reference to Homeland Security in the entire film. The words Department of Homeland Security are on the door of the office into which Viktor is led at the beginning of the film after being “apprehended.” Very subtle.
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http://www.townhall.com/c…k20041210.shtml

For weeks now on Brit Hume’s FoxNews program, Charles Krauthammer has been enjoining Fox viewers not to forget Afghanistan and the American achievment there. Krauthammer is a doctor—I seem to recall reading somewhere that he was a psychatrist—turned Conservative pundit, a transformation I’ve always thought a little odd. Perhaps peering into the weak heart of humanity turned him into the modern equivalent of a Stoic.
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