A Pilgrim’s Digression

The Washington Times headline reads, “Joy Explodes Across Iraq.” Presumably the headline did not refer to the detonation of an International Red Cross relief worker named Joy.

Both on-line and other print media were scarcely less adulatory. It was almost as if by mutual agreement, all of the nation’s media resources decided to suspend disbelief for a day. Perhaps for good.

Meanwhile, apparently reflecting its depressed, leftist readership, the third most-emailed story from the New York Times was a lengthy review of Jared Diamond’s new book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, in which Diamond claims that societies like our own here in America usually collapse soon after reaching their peak in population and achievement. The reasons for collapse are multitudinous, but Diamond believes eco-catastrophe and the exhaustion of natural resources are primary reasons that societies decline and die.

Pssst. Mr. Diamond? Pessimism is out of fashion. Joy exploded across Iraq today.

On his radio program, Rush Limbaugh declared that it was as if “Wolfowitz’s” prediction about the Iraqis greeting us with flowers had come true after all. Actually, it was Vice-President Cheney who made the now infamous comment that the Iraqis would greet us with flowers. But we’ll give Limbaugh the benefit of the doubt; after awhile, all these right-wingers start to sound alike, don’t they?

What was perhaps more startling was that after stating perfunctorily that yesterday was a great day for the Iraqis, Limbaugh went on to say that yesterday was also a great day for the President, a great day for the soldiers serving in Iraq, and finally, and most important, a great day for the families of those soldiers who had given their lives defending freedom, Mom, and apple pie.
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In advance of the Super Bowl this Sunday, Apple and Pepsi are again collaborating on selling Pepsi products and giving away iTunes songs.

I bought my first Diet Pepsi with an iTunes cap just today, a full week ahead of when the promotion was supposed to begin.

And no, my cap was not a winner. No big surprise there. Last year, I found out that the 1 in 3 odds of winning a free song were a bit inaccurate. My odds were more like one in five. Even so, I still managed to win nearly fifty songs, though I now have diabetes, I weigh four-hundred and thirty pounds, and I piss pure caramel syrup.

The contest is a little different this year. Under the cap, one will find either a “Please Play Again,” a coupon for a free Pepsi, or a code to enter at the iTunes music store for a free song. Just an observation, but it seems like Pepsi has addressed the problem of people sneaking a peak under the caps before buying the Pepsis. No matter how I turned the bottle, no matter the angle of my head as I intently tried to divine my fortunes through that opaque, distorted bottle of plastic, I could not tell in advance whether I was a winner or not.

The addition of a chance to win an iPod mini is also a new feature of the contest. Last year, there were complaints from some areas of the country that yellow-capped Pepsi products were hard to come by, and imbibers of Mountain Dew were completely out of luck. This year, at least one of those problems has been addressed: tipplers of the Dew will also have a chance to win a free song. Whether the bottles with iTunes caps are better distributed by Pepsi is another story.

Fair warning: I’m not feeling particularly consistent this afternoon, so expect no links between the paragraphs I am going to scatter here like bird feed in the snow. Pick out the seeds and overlook the empty shells.

Here in the Southeast, all weekend long we’ve been expecting a powerful winter storm that never quite materialized. Friday and yesterday, the weather forecast was for five to seven inches of snow and ice from Saturday noon through Sunday at five. In actuality, we received maybe three inches of snow with a top coat of ice.

Thus quite remarkably, yesterday we decided to get up very early and go out to breakfast and do some grocery shopping at Wal-Mart before the storm hit. “Very early” for us is seven AM, by the way.

The restuarant we ate at is one of these locally-owned “country” restaurants one can find throughout Virginia. It has a counter like a diner and lots of cigarette smoke. Virginia is a tobacco state, so the smoking laws are quite relaxed here. I remember when I first came to Virginia in 1996, I was shocked to go into a small, independent grocery store and see a sign on the checkout lane stating, “No smoking at registers.” The implication was, one could smoke throughout the rest of the store, just not at the checkout lane. And people took that implication to heart and often did smoke in the store. Used to be, when I was growing up, it was unremarkable to go into a department or grocery store and see someone smoking; they would mash the butts on the floor after finishing a smoke. Seeing such things again after all these years was a bit disorienting. Sometimes things just fade quietly out of existence without our even noticing. Sometimes for the better.

There was no smoking section in the restaurant where we ate yesterday. Smokers and non-smokers alike had to sit in the same dining area. This was only the second time we had eaten at this restaurant, the first time being a Sunday, when there were only non-smoking, post-church-attendees gobbling up eggs and bacon. Yesterday, the crowd was more varied. The first we noticed that people around us were smoking was when two older women sat down at a table very close to us and lit up.

Trying not to breathe through her nose, my wife said, “Did we sit in the smoking section?”

“I don’t think there is a smoking section,” I said.

Smoking doesn’t bother me usually, except in restaurants. I smoked. Maybe that should be “smoke” since it was just a few months ago that I bought a pack, smoked about half, and threw the rest away.

I have never smoked before, during, or after a meal, however. Smoking is a psychological habit every bit as much as a physical addiction, and as such, situation becomes important in the reinforcement of the habit. One finds that one smokes at certain times and places—while driving in the car, in the evening while drinking a beer and watching TV, or (for me) while reading, writing, and studying. I never understood the link between smoking and meals, however. These two old ladies, however, had smoked two ciggies apiece before their breakfasts had even arrived. They were those really long, thin, brown cigs, too; I think the brand name is More or something like that. Anyway, the kind that smell more like burning paper and toxins than burning tobacco. Disgusting.
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Today, Iraqi exiles begin the process of selecting a new legislature that will draw up the Iraqi Constitution. On NPR this morning, their correspondent was at a polling station in Iran, and according to that report, the influx of voters was pretty steady. Of course the audio from the site included a woman making that ululating sound they make when they are happy. That must be a very difficult sound to make.

Last night on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, their reporter delivered a story about anger among Iraqis in the United States who won’t vote because of the distance they have to travel to reach one of the five polling places. The American Iraqis are now true-blue citizens of this country: they have learned to blame their own laziness on the Government, just like the rest of us.

That “News Hour” report is what Conservatives would refer to as evidence of lib’ral bias in the media, by the way, because it isn’t positive enough.

It is a hopeful time for the Iraqis, and it is difficult to retain much pessimism when you see people, especially women, going to the polls and voting on the future of a country that has lived under totalitarianism for fifty years or more.

Turnout on Sunday may be small; terrorists may kill some people on election day; the insurgency may continue long after the election itself (in fact I think it probably will); but it seems to me pointless now to criticize or find fault. To criticize the elections or (secretly) hope that everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, only confirms the bad things that Conservatives have been saying about us Lib’rals.

I know it’s difficult, but try never to forget that the real enemy is not George Bush. The enemy are men like Zarqawi. Bush may bear some resemblance to him in terms of zealotry, but the difference could not be starker when you consider Zarqawi’s pre-election statement of principle, in which he said that he and his group had declared “all out war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology.” Since then, Zarqawi has warned people to stay away from the polls, calling them “dens of atheism and vice.” This is not a belief system bound to inspire many people. The Viet Cong and NVA at least had communism and a vision for the future of Vietnam. What has Zarqawi to offer, but death? Zarqawi does not even bother to make the much more appealing argument that he is fighting against the occupier. No, it is democracy itself, the right of people to choose their leaders, that Zarqawi is fighting against.

If there has ever been a good time for us to put what is past behind us, this may be it. There will be many battles ahead over the next four years, and chances are, not all of them will be figurative. We cannot continue to fight the battles we’ve already lost. We must look to the future and prepare for the battles that await.

No matter what our beliefs about how we went to war in Iraq, no matter our dislike of the President or our concerns for the future, the elections in Iraq are a good thing and we ought to pray it leads to even better things for the Iraqis. God knows they deserve it.

http://www.washingtonpost…-2005Jan26.html

The caption to this photo as it appeared in the Washington Post is “President Bush, during a hastily called appearance in the White House briefing room, figuratively plants a “flag of liberty” in the lectern to emphasize a point of last week’s inaugural speech.”

This rather reminded me of that scene at the end of Mel Gibson’s The Patriot in which Mel “plants” the flag of liberty in the chest of the British officer who is his sworn enemy.

The President continued: “While saying he had “firmly planted the flag of liberty” in Iraq, Bush offered no tangible plans for how he would plant it in other countries, suggesting instead that the stirring words of last week’s inaugural address were meant as a statement of principles recapitulating his first-term practices.”

I take back what I said about the inauguration speech being a cut above most such rhetoric. If the President himself is going to disown or qualify what he said, then the speech is meaningless.
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http://www.washingtonpost…-2005Jan26.html

Today, the Washington Post reports that another Writer Backing Bush Plan Had Gotten Federal Contract. Maggie Gallagher, a Conservative syndicated columnist, was paid about $21,000.00 to promote the President’s “marriage initiative” to “strengthen families.” True, $21,000.00 may be a pittance compared to Armstrong Williams’ salary as a shill. But it is worth noting.

Personally, I am loving this. Where will it end? I would just remind you of Tim Russert’s opinion, as stated on the Don Imus program Inauguration Day, that he believes folks in radio may be on the payroll as well.

My question is, if it is illegal for our Government to engage in clandestine propaganda campaigns against its own people, will there be prosecutions for these violations?

Have you ever had this experience before? You have listened to a song fifty or a hundred times in your life. Then one day, after not hearing it for years, you come to it again and it takes on fresh meaning.

I’m listening to “Stairway to Heaven” on my iPod, a song I haven’t heard all the way to the end probably since 1997. I downloaded it last night using a filesharing client (Miserere mei Deus!). I used to own a four or five LP set of Led Zeppelin hits which I listened to all the time in college; that may have been the last time I heard the song.

The song fits my mood this week: melancholic, but somewhat hopeful of change.

And it’s whispered that soon, if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forest will echo with laughter.

There is also what I can only take to be a Tolkien reference in the song as well.

“There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west /
And my spirit is crying for leaving.”

Even if it’s not a reference to the Grey Havens, it certainly would describe the feeling of compulsion that moves the Elves to leave Middle Earth. Anyway, a Tolkien reference or not, the latter two lines struck me as the most beautiful two lines in the song.

One comes across the idea of Heaven lying in the West in Celtic myth. Other cultures may share the idea, but I first encountered it in Irish literature, and obviously Tolkien utilized it as well.

I’ve been pretty stressed the past three days, which has led to writer’s block. I have three drafts of blog entries which will probably never see the light of day because I just can’t see my way to finishing them. It’s been a debilitating week so far.
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In an episode titled “Naughty Nautical Neighbors,” SpongeBob and his friend Patrick blow bubbles to each other. In each bubble, the friends have whispered a sweet message such as “you’re my best friend ever.” As the bubbles burst and SpongeBob hears Patrick’s kind comments, he blushes and giggles girlishly.

Harmless silliness…or subversive homosexuality?

A New York Times article, Conservatives Pick Soft Target, suggests that at least one person, Dr. James Dobson of the Focus on the Family, believes SpongeBob is being used to accustom children to the homosexual lifestyle.

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Following is my list of the ten most annoying things said or done by the “wise men” of the media on this Inauguration Day:

1. Brian Williams relating an anecdote about Jenna Bush applying lipgloss while seated in the Review Stand, and how her father leaned over and in a clenched-teeth-way told her to stop. Such scintillating investigative reporting!

2. Chris Matthews commenting for the umpteenth time about how beautiful, poised, cultured, and “real” the Bush twins are. At one point, he even said, “At least they aren’t wering Nazi uniforms.” With a slight jolt, I thought he must be referring to the President and his men themselves; only a couple seconds later did I realize he was making a Prince Harry reference and must have meant the twins.

3. Yet another middle-aged reporter referring to the first inauguraton he or she ever saw. e.g., Brit Hume telling the boring story of Eisenhower’s first inauguration, which Hume saw when he was ten.

4. Chris Matthews telling us, once again, that he was in the Peace Corps. “When I returned from the Peace Corps…” is one of his favorite ways to begin a sentence.

5. There’s nothing to report, so they interview some grinning Bushnik standing among the crowd. “What do you think of the day’s festivities?” As if they are going to say, “I think it’s comparable to one of the last fancy balls at Versailles before the Revolution engulfed France and sent the Bourbon King and Queen to the guillotine.”

6. There’s nothing to report, so Chris Matthews chatters about that “great” shot of the Capitol dome and says to his equally bored colleague, “Have you ever been up there? If you’ve got a good congressman, you should really have him take you up there.” Matthews is pure entertainment. As inarticulate and as boring as the President, only he’s liberal!

7. Another damned reference to Laura’s white outfit. Oooh, it’s Oscar de la Renta! It probably cost more than a middle class famiy makes in a month! But they’re just folks, right? She is a beautiful woman, and I’ve really got nothing bad to say about her. However, just once wouldn’t you like to see a President forego all the pageantry and give the money set aside for his inauguration to charity? Maybe I’m just the patriotic version of a Scrooge, but I really don’t feel much teary-eyed, positive emotion about these displays of self-congratulatory pompousness.

8. Reporters who drag out that dead, old horse about how “in other countries,” when power is transferred there are coups and (as Brian Williams said today), the losing candidate goes out back and digs his own grave. These anchors are never too specific about where these violent power grabs take place, but it doesn’t matter as long as they can express their “awe” that the transfer of power is so peaceful in this country. I don’t know, Brian, sometimes I think a good European-style soccer riot following an election might be healthy for this country. But that aside, I have a theory: journalists don’t really have much patriotic feeling in them either. It has all gradually ebbed out of them over several years of college and many years of dissolute living as an adult. But they think their viewers are patriotic and so they have a few standard expressions of appreciaton for our country’s “system” of doing things, which they pass around amongst themselves on occasions such as the Fourth of July and Inauguration Day.

9. Reporters trying to make Washignton’s anti-Inaugural protests sound like the Democratic Convention in Chicago in ‘68. “Chris, I think they’ve started throwing snow balls! Yes, someone just threw a snowball at a policeman. This could get violent. Now they are pulling up potted plants from around the hotel where the police have corralled them and are throwing them over the barriers at the policemen. If only those protestors could get out of their cage, those police would have a real fight on their hands.”

10. Whenever the camera cuts to Senator John Kerry, the newsman, whether it be Matthews or Hume or Williams, inevitably says, “He’s smiling, putting on a strong front for what must be a difficult day for him.” If Kerry isn’t smiling, they inevitably say, “The facade of cheerfulness has fallen away from John Kerry, and here we see him in a more pensive, downbeat, mood.”

And what’s with that Review Stand the President sits in to watch the parade? That reminds me too much of Stalinist era dictators waving at their legions and their ICBMs as they roll by. Matthews in one of his instructional moments told us that it was a tradition begun by William McKinley. It’s a tradition that ought to be retired, like the way we retired the tradition of inaugurating the President on the East side of the Capitol.

I never knew there so many songwriters in the Republican ranks. First, we heard a rendition of the Orrin Hatch-penned “Heal Our Land.” Then, as if our spine weren’t still tingling, we heard “Let the Eagles Soar,” made famous by John Ashcroft. I actually like Ashcroft’s version better. It stands to reason he would sing it best, since he wrote it.

During the singing of “Let the Eagles Soar,” Fox cut to Hillary sitting in the audience, doing this rather mechanical head-bob thing as if she were at a Scorpions concert listening to “Winds of Change.” I kept expecting her to raise her Bic lighter, but she kept it in her pocket. The Bushes may be the kind of people who buy “Christy Lane’s Greatest Hits” off the television, but somehow Hillary does not strike me as the type who listens to and enjoys soppy religio-patriotic drivel. Even as she bobbed her head, her lips were pinched. Perhaps it was merely the cold.
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