tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23899311323139052422024-03-13T07:36:31.968-07:00Marian Kester CoombsThe Website of Marian CoombsMarian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-16899043281497593382019-07-08T15:10:00.001-07:002019-07-08T15:10:09.735-07:00Pets vs. Wildlife
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span>fter</b>
donating to groups like Best Friends for several years, I have decided to give
instead to organizations that protect wild animals in wild habitat. I</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">m in the process of researching which organizations have the
lowest overhead and the best results.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Saving
house pets from being killed in shelters or churned out in soulless puppy mills
is an excellent goal, but millions of people not only already give to
organizations that rescue homeless cats and dogs, but personally participate in
their rescue. Ownership of companion animals is growing by leaps and bounds. In
2017–2018, 68% of American homes (approximately 85 million families) had pets; in
1988, only 56% did. Sixty percent of homes in 2017–2018 had dogs and 47% had
cats, for a total of 88 million dogs and 94 million cats. Obviously there are many
</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">cats & dogs</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> households testing
whether opposites (i.e., rival predators) attract.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Yet
in 2017, one-third of homeowners</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> liability claims were
pet-related, amounting to $700 million, up 90% from 2003. Feral or </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">community</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> cats and packs of feral
dogs are becoming more noticeable. People feed them; they reproduce; they
encounter roaming house pets and transmit a host of ailments, some fatal. Feral
dogs in particular signify the weakening of civil society. They don</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">t fear humans and wander without regard for natural
territories. And house cats kill millions of wild creatures annually for the
sheer feline fun of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">So
there is no shortage or imminent extinction bedevilling house pets either indoor
or outdoor. The greater the demand, in fact, the greater the supply. The extinction
of wildlife (amphibians, birds, bees, bats, tuna, cetaceans, foxes, wolves,
bears, big cats, pangolins, rhinos, elephants, and on and on) is a real threat,
however. No matter how many millions of well-meaning people open their doors
(and hearts) to puppies and kittens, the growing scarcity of wilderness is not
addressed. This crisis of habitat loss is driving the disappearance of rare,
endangered and valuable species, which, once extinguished, can never return.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Honestly,
the love we lavish on our pets makes us feel as if we</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">re doing something to Save the Animals. The toys and treats we
shower them with make up for the newborn litter that starves because its mother
can no longer find prey or is killed trying to return to the den.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Numerous
cases where dozens of wild animals are captured or bred, then caged and kept
barely alive for sale as pets, trophies or weird Chinese pharmaceuticals, do
nothing to lessen species endangerment either. What <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National Geographic</i> calls </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">wildlife tourism</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">isn</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">t new, but social media
is setting the industry ablaze, turning encounters with exotic animals into
photo-driven bucket-list toppers. Activities once publicized mostly in
guidebooks now are shared instantly with multitudes of people by selfie-taking
backpackers, tour-bus travelers, and social media </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">influencers</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> through a tap on their
phone screens. </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">…</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">The demand for exotic
animals that tourists can touch has led to animals being taken illegally from
the wild. Some, such as Amazonian sloths, typically die after weeks or months
in captivity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">With
exploding millions of people demanding their share of the planet, insane scenes
like the queues trudging along to </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">summit</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> Mt. Everest are becoming more and more common. If global
warming is occurring, due to whatever causes, more and more </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">development</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> will destroy more
irrecoverable wilderness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The
essential motive is well described by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NatGeo</i>
reporter Lindsay Smith:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Killing wildlife without
a permit is a criminal offense [in Zimbabwe]. But the leopard</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">s skin, teeth, claws and
bones – worth hundreds of dollars on the black market – represent a month</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">s salary in Zimbabwe</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">s impoverished economy.</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">It</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">s pleasant and easy to </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">adopt</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> domesticated breeds. As an inexpensive baby surrogate, a
kitten or puppy seems like a brilliant solution. But we can</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">t fool ourselves that this protects the animal kingdom from
Man. Natural evolution is at a standstill – maybe even devolving. And domestication
is as bad for our fluffy purebred pets as it is for genus Canis and genus
Felis. Surveys show that a majority of American pets are overweight, obese
and/or diabetic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Perhaps
most problematic is how these ersatz infants, dubbed </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">fur babies,</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> have become the
surrogates of choice for many conscientious young people. Unfortunately the </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">parenting</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> of fur babies diverts
from human parenthood the very people whose children would have cared enough to
restore a better balance to Man vs. Nature. It is fair to say that animal surrogates
are accomplishing the opposite of their intent. The more pets, the less
diversity. The less evolution, the less <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nature</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Benjamin
Disraeli said that </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">nations do not have friends, they have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">interests</i>.</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> Animals are at our mercy.
We don</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">t need to </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">befriend</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> them, or denature, trivialize or infantilize them: we need to
find our common interests. Which are simply the freedom, the habitat and the
territory to continue evolving, diversifying and otherwise pursuing each
species</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">s unique destiny. Since animals are at our mercy,
it is up to us to respect those destinies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Cuteness
can</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">t be the only criterion for a creature</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">s continued survival. But does this mean I</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">m giving my </span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">own</span><span style="font-family: "MS 明朝","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Aleya; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Aleya;">”</span><span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> two cats the boot? Hah – hardly. The older one will soon
depart this world, whereupon the younger one will go into mourning – until I adopt
a brand new kitten which he hopefully will cotton to. They will continue to be
indoor cats, stalking crickets and making tremulous little trills in their
throats as they birdwatch at the windows. Their role will continue to be to
take the edge off my painful estrangement from the natural world – an
estrangement that can never be mended, alas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Aleya","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Meanwhile, there's an outfit call Pristine Seas that has successfully allied with South American governments to protect more than two million square miles of ocean over the last ten years. My check is in the mail.</span></div>
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</style>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-17215092714038250652018-08-27T22:44:00.000-07:002018-08-27T22:50:35.756-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: 16.0pt;">GANGS OF
THE NEW WORLD ORDER</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: 16.0pt;">By Marian Kester Coombs</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Globalization can be described as
the dissolution of national identities and sovereignties into a massified,
featureless blob – a globaloma (with homage to Clare Boothe Luce’s brilliant
coinage “globaloney”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also can be defined
as the triumph of Capital’s eternal drive to pay the lowest possible wage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where borders once were shields against the
excesses of predatory employment practices, if only by sheltering competitive
alternatives, populations increasingly stand defenseless as their defining
qualities are sucked into the black hole of the New World Order. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The globaloma shrivels not just
wages, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">social power</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is this scarcest of all
commodities?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be as seemingly
trivial and basic as being able to get a decent job, start and support a
family, enjoy the respect of wife and children, “get ahead.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It extends all the way up to being able to
make decisions that protect, even save, one’s entire people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Social power is the energy of life itself, an
elixir compounded of the needs, desires and essential qualities of the
flesh-and-blood social being.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the political economy of power,
scarcity always rages; there is never remotely enough of it to go around; and
in turn, the group and individual Will to Power is the prime generator of all
scarcity in human affairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>J.-P. Sartre
claimed that human beings throughout history <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reproduce</i> scarcity at higher and higher levels, but the scarcity of
power is everlasting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Numerous competing power centers
continue to exist in the not-yet-fully-globalized world of nations,
semi-autonomous provinces such as Scotland and Quebec, ethnic homelands such as
Kurdistan, loosely-administered or informal protectorates such as Taiwan, and a
few remaining frontier regions such as the Tribal Areas of Pakistan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These competing power centers help satisfy
men’s burning urge to have control over the fates of self and kindred and
community; they afford alternatives, second chances, refuge and inspiration as
well as cautionary tales to those who have been put in check by their own
societies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Empowerment” is the polite,
PC term for the will to power, which cannot be denounced out of existence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Within any one society, of course,
there are dominant and subordinate groups that share the limited available
power unequally and more or less uneasily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Often, though not always, such class stratification originates from the
conquest of one people by another or successive others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dominant groups are better situated to
recruit their own into the next cohort of power players.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The great task of every generation is to sort
out which of its sons will win or be granted the status of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">men</i> – that is, powerful self-determining adults – and which will
remain essentially powerless (emasculated).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Societies like Ireland under British rule, where, no matter what their
qualities, very few Irish Catholic boys could hope to attain manhood in this
sense, are as a result fatally unstable (that instability persists in
Ulster).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same situation repeats
itself around the planet, from the African experience in America to the caste
system of India to the Intifada against Israel to the suppressed nationalities
of the former Soviet Union; from the Hebrews under Egyptian and Babylonian
captivity to the Saxons under the Normans to the Scottish clans under the
English crown to the South under Reconstruction to the 19th-century Italian <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">banditti</i> under the nobles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The phrase “will to power” links
this analysis to the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, while the word
“status” links it to the theories of C. Wright Mills, Richard Sennett, Paul
Fussell and Tom Wolfe (who declared his entire opus to be a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">commedia</i> of status pursuit).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These writers mock the “status panic,”
“status anxiety” and “hidden injuries” of the middle class, as though all these
amounted to no more than the petty dignity of a Walter Mitty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Eric Hobsbawm’s classic study <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bandits</i> (1969) better judges the real
stakes of the struggle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“The gentry use the pen, we the gun;
they are the lords of the land, we of the mountain,” explains one old Italian
brigand quoted in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bandits</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hobsbawm defines “social bandits” as</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>outlaws whom the lord and state
regard as criminals,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>but who remain within ... society,
and are considered</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>by their people as heroes, as
champions, avengers,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>fighters for justice, perhaps even
leaders of liberation,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and in any case as men to be
admired, helped and</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>supported.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The concept of social banditry
illuminates folk culture’s enduring celebration of Robin Hood, Jesse James,
Pretty Boy Floyd, Geronimo, Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa (not to mention
Fidel and Che), as well as its obsession with love matches between indomitable
commoners and maidens of royal blood in the face of fierce societal and
parental opposition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Youth gangs” based on ethnicity are
today’s social bandits, celebrated in fashion and music video.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1961, only 23 large American cities
reported serious gang problems; now half of all towns with populations of
25,000 or less report gang activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
male initiation rites wither away along with the social power they once
conferred, the peer group becomes all, and the peer group <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in extremis</i> is the gang.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox analyze it in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Imperial Animal</i>,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In post-adolescent males, the
genetic message is one of sinister</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and often undirected rebelliousness;
this threatening information</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>is received by older males, whose
steadier hormonal systems go</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>into reaction and insist on
containment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But what happens when the old rites
of passage lead nowhere, when containment never gives way to coronation – “The
King is dead, long live the Little Prince”?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To shift perspective somewhat,
immigrants into a nation are the equivalent of an entire new cohort of youth in
terms of their “message” to the established power structure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They create an automatic power vacuum as they
push their frequently unwelcome way into pre-established bastions of
power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually these immigrants have
come from societies already suffering crises of power scarcity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been well documented how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gangsterism</i> is the natural response of
newly-arrived groups shut out of mainstream power relationships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Virtually every ethnic group that has come to
America, including the Germans but with the possible exception of the Finns,
Swedes and Norwegians (who often became diehard Reds instead), goes through a
gangster phase on its way to making it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gangs create alternative
institutions in a subterranean world with its own rules, values and
rewards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the lowly street gang level,
where one is less than a man, forced to remain a boy, one’s women are
revealingly called “mamas.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The IRA depends
on such women just as Hell’s Angels do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Since the “legit” economy is all sewn up – or at least does not offer a
quick enough payoff to the young man on the make – <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>gangs develop their own underground or “black”
economy of smuggled, stolen and forbidden goods and services – “vice” of all
kinds – tax-free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus do they amass the
fortunes that buy them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">respect</i>, that
nectar and ambrosia of social power, first in their world and finally in the
broader society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gangs may be “just a phase” for most
groups, but in some cases they outlive their initial purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Irish-dominated political machines survive in
big cities and in the Northeast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>La Cosa
Nostra staggers onward, despite the great success of Italians in American life,
still offering pilfered power to its “made men” even as Don Corleone’s dream
for his son Michael in “The Godfather” – legitimacy – has long been realized;
the gang <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">makes</i> men (“men of respect”)
when mainstream society refuses to. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Assimilation of immigrants, then, is
in large part the process of gradually incorporating their men into the
existing structures of power in the host society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the massive immigration flows of modern
times, however, that absorption process is breaking down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In some cases, as in the U.K., U.S. and
Canada, quotas and affirmative action arbitrarily allow some immigrants to cut
in line ahead even of more qualified native-born minorities, creating further
political, economic and social chaos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But for ambitious immigrants who are not winners of the power lottery,
gangs more vicious than ever remain the time-honored way to go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The U.S. now harbors dozens of
violent, ethnic-based gangs with hundreds of thousands of members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As our nation’s sovereign power base is
sapped by the globaloma, such gangs will become permanent features of a bleak
landscape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an already notorious
phenomenon that second-generation immigrants may be more prone to gangsterism
than were their parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A gang of the
latest pattern, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), with its name so redolent of the
Virgin and salvation, is headed by illegal aliens from El Salvador who joined
in Los Angeles, were deported, regrouped in San Salvador, and have now
reentered the country to prey on our fellow citizens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These citizens will be glad to learn
that gun control meshes well with Mara Salvatrucha’s style:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of its murders are done by machete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Naturally such a gang targets police officers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cops to them are just rival gunmen in the pay
of the gang in power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>MS-13’s 20,000
members nationwide now include Mexicans, Ecuadorans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans
as well as Salvadorans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>MS-13 is also
reputed to have met with “a top al Qaeda lieutenant” in Tegucigalpa ... But not
to worry:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Authorities periodically
announce they have arrested and are planning to deport hundreds of MS-13
leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Again.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As this al Qaeda involvement
suggests, the scarcity of power, authority and manhood has been internationalized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even Europe has reacted to America’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ueber</i>-hegemon status by unionizing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, the European Union seeks to
counterbalance American power by wresting centuries’ worth of power off its
national foundations – a process akin to tossing priceless Greek statuary into
the street to serve as barricades.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Terrorist groups are political gangs
that operate like international guerrillas, snatching at whatever shreds of
power they can reach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes entire
countries, “rogue states” in revolt against the stifling dominion of the
hegemons, are relegated to gang status by the “legitimate” international
community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Referring to the Muslim world
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next
Stage of History, </i>neoconservative author Lee Harris threatens, “If a nation
contains gangs who have acted with conspicuous ruthlessness, then it is not
entitled to be considered a sovereign state.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Such a threat is the problem, not
the solution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Islam in fact is rapidly
becoming the official creed of the world’s disenfranchised, disempowered men,
radiating outward from its Arab base to embrace millions in the “developing”
(i.e., subordinated) nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hegemons all have nukes; their poor
relations want nukes, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one who
calls himself a man suffers another man to get the drop on him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be forced to disarm is to be
castrated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The situation is quite
literally <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">intolerable</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There is so little room for powerful
men in the emerging globaloma that the very subject of manhood is greeted with
outright hostility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Between nations and
within nations, manhood is now vigorously discouraged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An aggressive program of cultural neutering
to complement the political neutering is underway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The new behavior models for males – image after
image of fat, sluggish dolts alternating with howling party animals – reinforce
the message “Men are dogs.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
relentless a reprogramming must be deliberate, as though man-hating viragos had
seized power in Washington and Hollywood and Madison Avenue, Davos and Whitehall
and Brussels and The Hague.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(But of
course these “viragos” are themselves overwhelmingly male – men dedicated to
the dispossession and disempowerment of their very own “fellow men.”) It also
explains why public education is so stupefying and border control such a
joke:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Countless men who would have had a
shot at social power in a sovereign America must now be reprogrammed as
submissive proles.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Women have needs, too,” some will
point out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Women too want power over
their lives, to separate from their mothers, to not be dependent on “the
kindness of strangers,” to feel significant, to become successful adults; but
the drive of girls to attain adult womanhood is not the driving force of
history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Women continue overwhelmingly
to choose men for their power potential and to then share in that status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where women’s will to power most powerfully
manifests itself is in mothers’ ruthless promotion of their own children’s
interests over those of other bitches’ brats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Meanwhile their daughters more or less mercilessly whittle away at the
stock of rivals competing for the most potent males: “mean girls” in a war of
attrition, culling the herd of “superfluous” females.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet Steve Sailer is insightful to
argue that men have started investing a great deal more in their daughters now
that most families are down to one or two children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Half the one-child families will have a
daughter only, while two-thirds of the two-child families will have either one
or two daughters; in the absence of any son, many fathers treat a daughter like
a son.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Also factored into this
transformation must be the campaign against manhood, however:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fathers realize their daughters must develop
masculine characteristics in the absence of men able to protect or support them
in future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lionel Tiger for his part
argues that women are surging ahead of men in degree of education because they
now expect to have to support both themselves and their children, while men
expect to support themselves alone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As for gangs “as heroes, as
champions, avengers, fighters for justice, perhaps even leaders of liberation,”
in Hobsbawm’s words, most if not all revolutionary movements do begin as
gang-like “cells” – Freemasons, Committees of Correspondence, Minutemen, the
League of the Just – that array themselves against the powers that be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The language of our Declaration of
Independence clearly voices the resentment felt by subjugated men toward their
haughty masters:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The History of the present King of
Great-Britain is</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>a History of repeated Injuries and
Usurpations, all</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>having in direct Object the
Establishment of an</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>absolute Tyranny over these States.
... He has</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>dissolved Representative Houses
repeatedly, for</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>opposing with manly Firmness his
Invasions on</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the Rights of the People. ... He has
combined</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>with others to subject us to a
Jurisdiction foreign</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to our Constitution, and
unacknowledged by</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>our Laws ...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The American revolutionary
experience, thankfully, led to greater social empowerment, greater freedom,
greater self-determination; but the rise of gangs to challenge and replace <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anciens régimes</i> is not always a
liberating development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Jacobins and
Bolsheviks spring to mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Nazis are
a particularly complex example, a hybrid of street thugs, parvenus and other
marginal types with established major players in German industry and the
military.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Freikorps bands,
reorganized as the SA and then replaced by the Waffen-SS, contested the
Wehrmacht for its monopoly on the use of force.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a mere dozen years Nazi gang culture transformed the face of
Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entire nation adopted the
gang signs, songs, symbols, insignia, acronyms and colors of the NSDAP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The nation itself in effect became a gang, desperately
battling hegemonic Britain for its stolen “place in the sun.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the recent film “Der Untergang”
(“Downfall”), a burning-eyed Goebbels is shown more than once slipping away to
stare into a mirror; you get the sense that he has done this many times,
veering off to gaze at his image in its dramatic uniform as though to pinch
himself – “It is really I, who was nothing and am now a god of the Third
Reich.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Goebbels preferred his children
to die rather than be “slaves” in the postwar order.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In sum, history is a great <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bildungsroman</i>, a coming-of-age story of
the struggle of men to ensure that their own sons become the men of the next
generation – real autonomous manhood being the scarcest of all forms of social
power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Globalization thwarts and aborts
this process for untold millions by gutting and abstracting older forms of power
and authority – just as the One Ring does in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasia on this
very process, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lord of the </i>Rings.
And ceaseless emigration and immigration destroy the alchemy of assimilation
that historically gave newcomers <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">entrée</i>
to social power.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Further, globalization’s surreal
concentration of authority into fewer and fewer hands strangles not only the
power built up over centuries by hundreds of dominant national <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">groups</i>, but also the possibility of any
meaningful meritocracy of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">individuals</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter phenomenon was an upside feature
of the expansive, revolutionary phase of European and American
industrialization; there is no way within the globaloma that this miracle could
ever come to pass again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There will
arise instead a vanishingly small coterie of the legitimate, already prefigured
in the phenomenon of political dynasties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Bushes and Cheneys, Kennedys and Clintons will take care that their
own never sink into peonage; the rest of us will be the equivalent of bastards,
dependent, powerless and “lumpenized.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet history is also the story of
irresistible resistance to tyranny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>People’s response to power shortages in the past has been to form
alternative institutions to keep alive their identity and aspirations:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>trade unions, workingmen’s associations,
Friendly Societies offering benefits “such as unemployment, superannuation,
sickness, accident and death allowances” (from G.D.H. Cole and Raymond
Postgate, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Common People</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1746-1946</i>), co-operative workshops and
factories, “Co-Op” stores (which introduced the masses to healthy foods),
credit unions, strike funds, underground schools that taught forbidden
languages like Basque and Irish,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">samizdat</i>, boycotts, organized Luddism
and sabotage, vigilantism, “subversive” forms of religious belief, not to
mention the vibrant cultures of pub and music hall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These institutions helped heal the ravages of
raw industrial capitalism; they long predate the imitations that the State was
forced to come up with to deter revolution. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The rising global elites now are
quietly, swiftly shifting to their own new institutions like the International
Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol, the Law of the Sea Treaty and the
imposition of a global tax under the cover of U.N. “reform.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They seem to be trying as rapidly as possible
to lay waste traditional institutions – religion, marriage, citizenship,
private property, the separation of powers, equality before the law – as they abandon
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Supreme Court has begun citing
international conventions, not the Constitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Free traders in Congress behave as though
favoring American workers were an act of the most hideous racism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The more centralized and totalized
the government, the less benefit to the governed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Healing the ravages of globalization will
require salvaging and rebuilding alternative power centers of our own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Home schooling and the charter school
movement are immensely important enterprises in this cause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Minuteman Project’s direct action on
America’s southern border, “just doing” the job that the official
border-controllers refuse to, is another great precedent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even blogging, while a very mixed bag, serves
notice that “official” sources of information are no longer allowed to do their
usual lousy job of framing the news, and demonstrates that there are far more
voices out there demanding to be heard than can possibly be accommodated by the
so-called MSM.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On September 11, 2001, the only
hijacked plane that did not find its mark was brought down by a gang of
passengers armed only with the heroism of despair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the state goes off its rocker, as it
periodically does, it is the “little platoons” of civil society that set our
lives in vital order once again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: 12.0pt;">NOTE,
August 2018</span></u><span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: 12.0pt;">: I
wrote this essay more than 10 years ago, but it didn’t seem to need much
updating.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "cochin"; font-size: large;">----
Marian Kester Coombs</span></div>
Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-24745102372629288252017-05-18T05:27:00.001-07:002017-05-29T13:30:32.186-07:00Things of This World<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #181818; line-height: 107%;">The world is so full of a number of things</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #181818; line-height: 107%;">I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #181818; line-height: 107%;"> <i> Robert Louis Stevenson</i></span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The greatest mass divestiture of material goods in history has begun, as the vast rich postwar generation tries, without success, to
pass its vast riches on to its daughters and sons. For a variety of reasons the
children of Boomers – called Millennials or Gen X or Gen Y or the Baby Boom
echo or whatever – those born roughly between 1980 and 2000 – <b>will not</b> and <b>cannot</b>
inherit their parents’ heritage or accept their inheritance. They reject our exotic
dust-magnet tchotchkes, they have no use for our closets full of clothing groaning on
the rack or our cupboards bulging with dishes and glasses and gadgets and
gizmos, they won’t take our credenzas or escritoires or étagères or vanities or
china cabinets or recliners or wedding silver or pianos, they don’t want our
impressive lifelong collections or craft supplies or artwork or souvenirs or even
family photos and home movies.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I will not come today.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Cannot” is false, and that I <i>dare</i> not, falser.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I <i>will </i>not come today.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>from Julius Caesar</i></span></span><br />
</div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The “will not” part has to do with the aesthetic of <i>Less</i>.
The electronic reduction of films, music, photography and print to computer
files, out of sight/out of mind, has played a huge role in the divestiture.
Instead of lovingly preserving sensuous material objects, Boomers’ kids even
tolerate the periodic loss of all their personal data in computer crashes. They
seem to be less attached to “the things of this world” than
we their parents could ever bring ourselves to be. Of course there is a positive
aspect to this attitude. Possessions <i>can</i> tie one down and hold one back. Riches can be defined in many ways, both material and spiritual. It appears the postwar generation <i>overbought</i>. ...</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The “cannot” part has to do with the high cost of living
which limits the housing size, storage space, cash flow and savings of this
younger generation. The Boomers did very well for themselves even working
parttime; now two fulltime earners are required to live the good life. And if you live in any American city, you don't want a car, not even a free one.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #181818; line-height: 107%;">… The things I brought with me from far away,<br />
compared with theirs, look strangely not the same:<br />
in their great country they were living things,<br />
but here they hold their breath, as if for shame.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">from “The Solitary,”</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">Rainer Maria Rilke</span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Possessing no current intentions of having their own progeny,
the Boomers’ kids also turn their noses up at all the boxes of adorable infant
and child toys and onesies and bibs and impossibly tiny t-shirts that read
“Mama’s Angel Baby” and the darling children’s books with their gentle truths
and beautiful illustrations. Indeed one of the saddest desertions, one of the
most shocking betrayals, is the rejection of the Book itself.</span></span><br />
</div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Boomers have already bravely faced up to the bitter downfall of their beloved LPs – record albums – <i>vinyl</i> … But books?
Who doesn’t want books? Everybody, it turns out. You can’t give the things
away; in fact you must pay to have them removed from your premises and dumped
into (ironically) unmarked graves.</span></span><br />
</div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Boomers’ kids do read, of course, but prefer Kindle-type
interfaces. At least they do now: there is growing evidence that, like vinyl, material
books are starting to make a comeback. There’s nothing like the feel of a
vintage volume in the hand, the antique fragrance, the impression of the engraver’s plate on the bond paper …</span></span><br />
</div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Such a typical Boomer utterance, that. We sure did love our
“stuff.” We still do. It makes us feel secure, successful, complicated. The
immense material edifice we have constructed will never be reconstructed. Its
loss will impoverish future society and wipe out a great deal of social memory.
</span><span style="font-size: small;">Of more serious concern is the potential for
the Internet alteration, “scrubbing” or "disappearing" of knowledge and history. How can biographies be recollected with no letters or pictures or tangible objects to refer to?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">The twilight years of these Things will pass silently, locked inside the thousands of square miles
of storage units crowding the land. But much more will be carted off en masse to China or snapped up by immigrants at yard sales. Never to return.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Love Calls Us to the Things of This World</span></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
Richard Wilbur</span></i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The eyes open to a cry of pulleys, </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">And spirited from sleep, the
astounded soul </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Hangs for a moment bodiless and
simple </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">As false dawn. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> Outside
the open window </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The morning air is all awash with
angels. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> Some are in
bed-sheets, some are in blouses, </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Some are in smocks: but truly there
they are. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Now they are rising together in calm
swells </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever
they wear </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">With the deep joy of their
impersonal breathing; </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> Now they are
flying in place, conveying </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The terrible speed of their
omnipresence, moving </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">And staying like white water; and
now of a sudden </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">That nobody seems to be there. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> The
soul shrinks </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> From all that it
is about to remember, </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">From the punctual rape of every
blessèd day, </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">And cries, </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> “Oh,
let there be nothing on earth but laundry, </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Nothing but rosy hands in the rising
steam </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">And clear dances done in the sight
of heaven.” </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> Yet, as the sun
acknowledges </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">With a warm look the world’s hunks
and colors, </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The soul descends once more in
bitter love </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">To accept the waking body, saying
now </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">In a changed voice as the man yawns
and rises, </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> “Bring them down
from their ruddy gallows; </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Let there be clean linen for the
backs of thieves; </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be
undone, </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure
floating </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Of dark habits, </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
keeping their difficult balance."</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-22275611043398071922017-03-12T10:25:00.000-07:002018-03-30T13:24:27.766-07:00National Hymns and Patriotic Anthems<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marian Kester Coombs</span></i>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>September 2016</i><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><i> </i> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">National anthems originate as paeans to
a people’s self. At the very least anthems inspire solidarity and express a
people's self-image or -concept. They serve as the soundtrack of nascent
nations and established empires as well as of smaller human cohorts. Their form
and content range from the most bloody-minded of fight songs to the most
Utopian of hymns to the Creator.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In modern times the massive expansion
of global self-consciousness has led in some cases to anthems-by-committee
being superimposed on native musical traditions, so a given anthem may no
longer characterize a particular nation any more than all the people in
that nation may belong to one original nationality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But most modern national anthems began
as hymns and were then<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>transformed
by political upheaval or nation-building. Nations – from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">natio</i>, Latin for clan, race or tribe related by birth –
are born believing in their own divine origin: that their people were fashioned
by gods who condescended to descend to earth, or who at least continued to
consider their creatures the unique "people of God." As such, the
national hymn confidently invokes divine aid in smiting the foe and gaining
victory on the battlefield.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Old Testament is full of such
accounts of the deeds of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yahweh – Deus
Sabaoth, Lord God of Hosts – all of which are anthemic for the people of Judah.
"Rock of Ages" (“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ma’oz Tsur</i>”)
is an ancient hymn common to both Jewish and Christian faiths since at least
the 14th century.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>It was translated
from Hebrew to German in the 19th century, and to English not long after:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thou amidst the raging foe / Wast our shelt'ring tower.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Furious they assailed us, / But Thine Arm availed us,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And Thy Word / broke their sword,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When our own strength failed us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Rock of Ages" is a classic
example of simultaneous prostration at the feet of divine providence and of
militant <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">self</i>-worship common to the
root anthems of earth's peoples. In the Western tradition we can also begin with
the paeans of ancient Greece, songs of triumph and thanksgiving that preceded,
accompanied and followed battle. Paeans were as likely to be sung by private
armies like Achilles's Myrmidons as they were to represent an entire
city-state. The root of the word seems to be related to “healing”: a shaman’s
chant to the gods for restoration after the stress of battle. Achilles has his
men sing one after the slaying of Hector in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Iliad</i>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Before most Western peoples awoke to
their nationhood, however, there was the greater body of Christendom, and
Christian hymns that functioned to all intents and purposes as anthems. One of
the earliest was "Fairest Lord Jesus" (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schoenster Jesu</i>), also called the Crusaders' Hymn, sung to the tune
well known today as "Morning So Fair to See." Its history is of
interest in light of Islam's renewed attack upon the West.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When Muslim armies recaptured Jerusalem
in 1187, Pope Innocent II called upon Europe's knights to answer that grievous
provocation. But the knights were battle-weary. In the spring of 1212, however,
a 15-year-old shepherd boy named Stephan inspired thousands of French children
to follow him to the Holy Land. At the same time a German 10-year-old named
Nicholas was rousing thousands of his own fellow boys and girls. "These
unsuspecting lambs of Europe began to gather in flocks to begin their
pilgrimage southward," records the Christian History Institute. This was
the Children's Crusade. By tradition these young soldiers, "escorted by
butterfly and bird," sang "Fairest Lord Jesus" as they marched –
to slavery, starvation, disease and death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Centuries later this hymn was finally
collected in the 1677 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Muenster Gesangbuch</i>.
Still later, in 1842, August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, who wrote the
poem “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deutschland ueber alles</i>,” heard
Silesian peasants singing the hymn and recorded it in his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schlesische Volkslieder</i>. The first known English translation was by
Richard Storrs Willis, the Bostonian composer of "It Came Upon the
Midnight Clear," who published it in his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Church Chorals and Choir Studies </i>(1850).</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">O Thou of God to earth come down,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thou, my soul's glory, joy and crown.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The verses go on to extol fair meadows,
woodlands, sunshine, moonlight – than all of which is Christ more fair – which
presage the degeneration of the text into the bland nature-worship of Vincent
Silliman's 1934 version:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Morning so fair to see, night veiled in mystery,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Glor'ious the earth and resplendent skies!</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Great God, we march along, singing our pilgrim song,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As through an earthly paradise.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As befits an ancient nation, Britain
boasts the earliest and most varied national hymns and anthems, although to
this day she has resisted picking an official one. Perhaps her first
was the paean sung at a famous medieval victory. In Shakespeare's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Henry V</i>, after the English miracle at
Agincourt in 1415, the king instructs his band of brothers, "Do we all
holy rites./Let there be sung <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Non nobis </i>and
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Te Deum</i>,/The dead with charity
enclosed in clay ..."</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Non
nobis </span></i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">was the Latin version of Psalm 115, a
prayer of humble thanksgiving:</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Non nobis, Domine, Domine,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Non nobis, Domine,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sed nomini, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not to us, O Lord, not to us,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But to your name be the glory.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The victory soon afterwards inspired
its own popular lay, which has become known as The Agincourt Song, Hymn or
Carol, or simply as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deo gracias</i>. The
words' author is unknown but the melody is attributed to John Dunstable (? – 1453).
As in a topical calypso number, there are six verses recounting the
history of the campaign, of which the first is:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our King went forth to Normandy</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With grace and might of chivalry.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There God for him wrought marvellously,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wherefore England may call and cry:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deo
gracias, Deo gracias, Anglia redde pro victoria!</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 1740, it is well documented,
"Rule, Britannia!" was written by Thomas Arne, a close colleague of
Handel, and first performed at a masque for the Prince of Wales. While not
quite an official anthem, it fit the bill beautifully, being born in
bellicosity (that wildly emotional naval episode with Spain dubbed The War
of Jenkins' Ear), oozing confidence in divine favor, and boasting the best
fight-song chorus ever:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When Britain first at Heav'n's command</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Arose from out the azure main,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This was the charter of the land,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And guardian angels sang this strain:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Rule,
Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves;</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Britons
never, never, never shall be slaves!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But it is "God Save the
King," whose roots are much older than the War of Jenkins' Ear, that bears
the distinction of being the world's first proper national anthem, although its
musical and lyrical histories are murkier.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Two key lines date from a gathering of
the fleet at Portsmouth in 1545 during the reign of Henry VIII; the watchword
was "God save the King" and the reply was "Long to reign over
us." This song too was first performed in 1740, at a private royal dinner
to celebrate the victory at Portobello. Thus 1740 would seem to be the year
that Britain woke to national self-awareness, a pearl formed painfully by the
constant irritation of rival empires. The first verse:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">God save our gracious King! / Long live our noble King!</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">God save the King!</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Send him victorious, / Happy and glorious,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Long to reign over us,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">God save the King!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The second verse, no longer sung:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">O Lord our God arise, / Scatter his enemies,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And make them fall.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Confound their politics, / Frustrate their knavish tricks,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On Thee our hopes we fix:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">God save us all!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The earliest public performances of
"GSTK" were at Drury Lane and Covent Garden in 1745, this time in a
welter of rage and fear after the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, had
landed in Scotland with his band of doomed romantics. The lyricist is unknown.
Traditionally a "John Bull" is cited – so perhaps the words were
never formally composed but simply popped out of the popular subconscious. But
it's in the music that the real controversy lies. An original melody is music’s
Holy Grail. Lyrics: a dime a dozen. A good tune: priceless.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Handel, Purcell, Arne and Henry Carey
have all been all credited with the melody, but the most specific evidence
points to Jean-Baptiste Lully (Giambattista Lulli), Louis XIV's court composer.
Lully supposedly was commissioned by the King's mistress to write a song for
the opening of the St.-Cyr military academy in 1686. He based it on a paean
already sung whenever French royalty put in an appearance, "<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Domine salvum fac Regem</i>." The
song was not heard again until 1745 – ironically chosen by the Old
Pretender (James Stuart) as his own anthem as he prepared to invade England
from France. The outcome of that exercise determined which force would claim
the anthem for its own.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A dozen years later, an anonymous
lyricist (thought to have been Charles Wesley) set new words to the melody,
creating the hymn "Come, Thou Almighty King." Wesley’s motive was to
counter the deification of royalty so pronounced in "GSTK." Yet it
was not so long before that no one batted an eye at the identification of the
mortal king with God himself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Come, Thou almighty king / Help us Thy Name to sing,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Help us to praise:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Father, all glorious, o'er all victorious,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Come and reign over us, Ancient of Days.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lyrics do matter, on occasion. When a
band of British soldiers demanded that a Long Island congregation sing
"GSTK" during the Revolutionary War, the colonials defiantly sang
"Come, Thou Almighty King" instead. Nor would any Scot worth his salt
ever submit to singing the verse of "GSTK" that exhorts His Majesty
to "sedition hush, and like a torrent rush, rebellious Scots to
crush."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lyrics matter, music matters, anthems
matter. When the British conceded defeat at Yorktown, their band famously
played "The World Turned Upside Down." And when the British handed
Aden over to Egypt in 1967, the band played Lionel Bart's Cockney plaint
"Fings Ain't Wot They Used to Be."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The adoption of "God Save the
King" kicked off a craze for national anthems that has never abated. Many
nations simply took over the tune and translated the lyrics into their own
tongue. Russia, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and Liechtenstein all did
so, and the latter continues to use it. As one musicologist wrote, "There
is something alluring in the fact that the best-known tune in the world should
have no known composer." Words come and go, political sentiments ebb and
flow, but a great tune is forever.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Take Germany's anthem, "<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deutschland Ueber Alles</i>." This
beautiful theme originally belonged to Austria-Hungary; it had been adapted by
Haydn from an old Croatian folk song and set to a poem, "<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser</i>"
("God Preserve Emperor Franz"), which poet Ludwig Haschka had modeled
on the lyrics of "GSTK," and dedicated to Kaiser Franz II on his
birthday in 1797. (The wee sovereign was five years old.) Haydn also employed
it for a set of variations in one movement of his "Emperor" String
Quartet #62 in C major, Op. 76 No. 3 (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poco
adagio, cantabile</i>).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All for naught: once the Austro-Hungarian
Empire ceased to be in 1918, it lost its anthem to Germany, which had been
lusting for it all the while (though it remains in hymnals as “Austria” or “The
Austrian Hymn”). The song became the official – if stolen – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deutschlandslied</i> in 1922 during the
Weimar period, in a conscious effort to allay political doubts about the
Republic. Hoffman von Fallersleben’s 1841 nationalist poem urging Germans to
place the unification of the German people “above all else in the world” fit
the melody like a glove.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Today only the third verse is sung; the
others have been suppressed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unity and right and
freedom / For the German fatherland.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let us all strive to
this goal, / Brotherly, with heart and hand …</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Beethoven’s Ode to Joy has also been
much coveted as an anthem. The European Union snagged it in 1972. Not if but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">when</i> the EU finally folds, Joy will
again be a free agent.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Meanwhile, Austria was in want of her
own anthem. A nationwide contest was held in 1946 to procure one. The Austrian
poet Paula von Preradovic, born in Vienna of an old Croatian family,
contributed the winning verses, and the tune chosen is either by Mozart or his
close contemporary and fellow Mason Johann Holzer. “Land of Mountains, Land on
the River” eschews patriotic religiosity in favor of high-minded generalities –
just what the postwar world wanted. Thus Austria’s anthem has gone from a
Croatian melody with Austrian lyrics to an Austrian melody with Croatian
lyrics.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The borrowing continued as Italy too
gathered her forces for the leap to nationhood. As early as 1769, Felice de
Giardini composed music explicitly for “Come, Thou Almighty King,” contrary to
the usual practice of hijacking a tune by injecting it with new lyrics. His beautiful
melody promptly became known as The Italian Hymn.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But it was a battle hymn that Italy’s
patriots needed just then. That need was filled in 1847 by the poem “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fratelli d’Italia</i>” (“Brothers of Italy”)
by Goffredo Mameli, a comrade in arms of Garibaldi, which was immediately set
to new, vigorously rhythmic and Italianate music by Michele Novaro. Sung around
the country, it helped spread the fever for unity and independence. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When it comes to Italy, arguably the
most musical nation on earth, we expect to hear an impassioned cascade of
arias. But musician and philosopher Balint Vazsonyi once described Novaro and
Mameli’s hymn as “mind-boggling triteness.” The poet Giusti wrote to Verdi as
early as 1847: “You know that the tragic chord is the one that resounds most in
our soul, but … the kind of sorrow that now fills the souls of us Italians is
the sorrow of a people who feel the need of a better future.” Mazzini
importuned Verdi to write “an Italian battle hymn – the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marseillaise</i> of Italy.” But the great composer, whose operas were
full of characters, plots and lyrics that patriots hungrily seized upon, never
explicitly wrote such a hymn.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mazzini was brilliant to ask for an
Italian <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marseillaise</i>. No other anthem
is more bound to the political fate of a nation than this masterpiece written
in a white heat one night in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.
Revolutionary troops sang it on their march from Marseilles to Paris, and all
France went mad for it, singing it over and over until their voices gave out.
(Abel Gance’s film “Napoléon” immortalized this phenomenon.) The song
practically forces you to start shouting and pumping your fist, especially when
you arrive at</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Aux
armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons!</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marchons!
Marchons!</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Qu’un
sang impur abbreuve nos sillons!</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dutifully from time to time French
politicians and do-gooders (but I repeat myself) cluck over “impure blood
fertilizing our fields” and a few other lines, but so far even the French
Communist Party refuses to “meddle with our heritage.” The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marseillaise</i> was banned in Vichy France and all Nazi-occupied
lands, and if it was good enough to drown out the Germans in “Casablanca,” it’s
good enough to be whistled menacingly and offensively at France-Algeria
football matches …</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Singing the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marseillaise</i> was and still can be a thrilling act of resistance.
But it never invokes God’s help against “tyranny’s bloody standard” – rather,
it calls upon “children of the fatherland” to defend <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Liberté</i> in lieu of the discarded <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dieu</i>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La France catholique</i>
remains the secular, godless nation <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">par
excellence</i>. Perhaps this explains her astounding difficulty in standing up
to Muslim aggression.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In anthems of the Swiss type – the
Austrian, Scottish, several of the American – there is almost a reversion to
pantheism. God physically dwells and manifests Himself amid the sublime beauty
of the homeland’s mountains and valleys, pools and groves, just as the Greek
gods dwelt upon Olympus and Ida.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Few peoples have had a fiercer ride on
the rollercoaster of history than the Russians – invasion, Oriental despotism,
liberalization, world war, sectarian coup, forced industrialization, terror,
collapse, rampant Westernization – and their anthems reflect
this. From 1816 to 1833 it was our familiar old "God Save the
Tsar!" From 1833 to 1917, a somewhat more individuated hymn prayed to
Russia's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bog </i>(God):<br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And should dread war
arise, stretch forth Thy Hand,<br />
To guard from wicked foes our dear, dear land.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
Come 1917, the situation was obviously a free-for-all. Alongside the
nationalist hymn "How Glorious Is Our Lord in Zion" and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marseillaise</i> itself, sung in French,
there was a "Workers' Marseillaise" ("<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rabochaya Marselyeza</i>"). By 1918 the winner was the
Internationale, sung with clenched fists. The Internationale, still the
official anthem of the international Communist movement, has a great <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marseillaise</i>-like march melody composed
in 1888 by Belgian socialist Pierre De Geyter to lyrics penned by Eugène
Pottier eighteen years earlier, during the Paris Commune: "Arise, ye
pris'ners of starvation,/Arise, ye wretched of the earth!"<br />
<br />
By 1943, Stalin had decided that the Internationale's Russian lyrics, such
as "Let's denounce the old world! Let's shake its dust from our
feet!," made it sound as if the USSR had not already achieved these goals;
moreover, like any <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">grand</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">artiste</i>, Stalin had a better idea about
nearly everything. With typical verve he rounded up twenty or so poets and
composers and ordered them to create new words and music that "people
will sing both in joy and in misfortune" (well, in misfortune at least!).
At first the Poet of Steel planned to force Prokofiev or Shostakovich to cough
up the melody, but he finally settled for a tune already used by the Bolshevik
Party's own anthem.<br />
<br />
The resultant "Hymn of the Soviet Union" lasted from 1944 to 1992,
with a time-out in 1977 to remove all references to Stalin. After the break-up
of the USSR, this hymn was retitled "Hymn of the Russian Federation"
and given very different back-to-the-future lyrics:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Russia, our holy country, / Russia, our
beloved country,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">… You are unique in the world,
inimitable,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Native land protected by God!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Having now arrived at the Putin era of
revived Russian nationalism, we note that a major share of that effort involves
bringing Russian Orthodoxy back from the dead – if possible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Keeping in mind that true anthems are
basically religious hymns to a people themselves, we can scan the rest of the
globe rather quickly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">China’s anthem was written in 1935 by a
jailed poet – a surefire method for producing heartfelt lyrics! – who “chose” as
its object of worship none other than Chairman Mao; the title, creepily enough,
is “March of the Volunteers.” In complete contrast, India’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jana Gana Mana</i>” was first introduced at
an Indian National Congress convention in 1911, with deeply Hindu lyrics by poet
Rabindranath Tagore.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The political turmoil in the Middle
East has meant that Arab anthems have very high turnover. Many of them are of
the “Arab fanfare” school of military-sounding brass; often there are no
lyrics. Israel’s anthem, however, began as a poem called “Hope” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hatikvah</i>) published in Jerusalem in
1886. The dearth of Hebrew songs at a time when Zionism was on the rise led a
Romanian Zionist to join the words of Hatikvah to a folk song from his native
Moldavia which Smetana had used in the “Moldau” movement of his great symphonic
poem “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ma Vlast</i>” (“My Homeland”).
Israel does not officially recognize the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hatikvah</i>
but its minor key and plaintive melody are haunting.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Japan’s anthem is also a rather curious
hybrid. The words were chosen from the ninth-century “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kimigayo</i>.” In 1860, an Englishman who was the Japanese army’s
bandmaster was ordered to compose a melody. Twenty years later, a court
musician wrote a different, traditionally Japanese melody, but of course it did
not harmonize with the Western musical scale; so a German bandmaster was
brought in to make it sound like Gregorian chant.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Why does the Spanish anthem have no
lyrics? It seems to have been an oversight; none of the lyrics proffered got
anyone excited. Franco declared this “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marcha
Real</i>” official in 1939. It may not even be a Spanish march. There was
nearly an international incident when the trumpeter at the 2003 Davis Cup final
between Argentina and Spain somehow played the wrong Spanish anthem. Apparently
between 1931 and 1939, the anthem had been changed to “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Himno de Riego</i>,” an air – with lyrics! – indelibly associated with
the Republic. Hearing it played, the Spanish team went ballistic … and indeed, it’s
hard to imagine how such an arcane switch could have been accidental.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mexico almost didn’t have anthematic
lyrics either. In 1853 Presidente Santa Anna announced a competition to create
a Mexican anthem. The country’s leading poet tried to bow out, claiming he
wrote only of love. His fiancée Guadalupe not only disbelieved this excuse but
was possibly motivated by the large prize Santa Anna offered. She lured him to
a bedroom and locked him in. After four hours of captivity Senor Bocanegra
emerged with the winning submission.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brazil has the good fortune of possessing
a samba anthem. Ary Barroso’s 1939 “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aquarela
do Brasil</i>” (“Brazilian Watercolor”) is also well known as the torch song
“Brazil.” Ecstatic in its praise of the country, it is everyone’s favorite
samba song and has been the unofficial anthem for decades – in particular due
to the fact that the official <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hino</i>
sounds totally un-Brazilian.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Australians vastly prefer the quaint
“Waltzing Matilda” (“a song about a tramp who camps by a creek and steals a sheep.
Three policemen arrive. Rather than submit to capture, the tramp commits
suicide by drowning himself in the creek”) to their official anthem, “Advance
Australia Fair.” No non-Australian really understands, but the sentiment runs
deep. The tune sounds a bit like “Lili Marleen” but is a Scottish melody called
“Thou Bonnie Wood o’ Craigielea.” The poet was A.B. “Banjo” Paterson, a true
master of Strine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Other lands declare “God Bless New
Zealand,” “God Bless Fiji,” “God Bless the Hungarians,” “God Bless Our Homeland
Ghana,” and so forth. Such titles cut to the chase: solicitation of God’s favor
and protection.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Princess Diana’s favorite of Britain’s five
loveliest anthems was “I Vow to Thee, My Country,” a tuneful excerpt from
Gustav Holst’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Planets </i>(“Jupiter”)
with lyrics praising love and peace. But some British clerics have condemned it
as “white-dominated” and “nationalistic.” No wonder the Church of England is in
sharp decline.</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The United States has the largest
number of competing anthems. Our country’s youth, deep religiosity, diversity
and democratic vigor combined to make it a hotbed of hymnody. All told there
have been least ten real contenders, eleven if you count the Johnson brothers’
anthem for black America “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” Between the earliest
introduction of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and its adoption in 1931, Americans
poured forth their belief in our nation’s special pact with Almighty God in
such wonderful compositions as “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” “America” (“My
Country, ‘Tis of Thee”), “God of Our Fathers,” “America the Beautiful” and last
but not least, “God Bless America” (Irving Berlin, 1918).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The Star-Spangled Banner” has a melody
that was composed in 1775 for the Anacreontic Society of London’s paean to
wine, wine, wine; the tune was popular in the U.S. even before it was chosen by
Francis Scott Key for his acclaimed 1814 poem. “TSSB” was alternating with
“Hail, Columbia!” as America’s national hymn by the beginning of the Civil War.
The latter piece (music 1789, lyrics 1798) is set to a rather undistinguished
march and deifies George Washington while also exalting “Columbia” as a goddess
of Liberty like Britannia or France’s Marianne. Among its more noteworthy
lyrics are “With equal skill, with God-like pow'r, / He governs in the fearful
hour / Of horrid war ...” As the war dragged on, the North eventually adopted
“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “The Battle Cry of Freedom” while the
South went with “The Bonnie Blue Flag” and “Dixie.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 1861 a group of Manhattan
businessmen calling themselves the National Hymn Committee recognized that the
severely riven nation had better choose a formal unifying anthem, or rather <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hymn</i>. The group nixed “Yankee Doodle” as
“childish,” and many others as “pretentious” or various species of “boring.” It
was not until the Great Depression that “The Star-Spangled Banner” burst
through the ambivalence and finally gave America a paean of her own. At least up
to this point.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I conclude with a lost verse of “TSSB”
that </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">gives voice to what any nation needs to
survive: legitimate authority, belief in itself and in a power greater than
itself, faith, ideals, a moral compass. Once gods are lost, they are not easily
recovered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 14.0pt;">O thus be it ever, when free men
shall stand</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Between their loved homes and the
war’s desolation!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Blest with vict’ry and peace, may
the heav’n-rescued land</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Praise the Pow’r that hath made
and preserved us as a nation!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Then conquer we must, when our
cause is just;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And this be our motto: ‘In God is
our trust!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-71759540769956061892015-08-25T19:24:00.000-07:002015-08-29T16:12:23.348-07:00What Middle Class?<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">by Marian Kester Coombs</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The American Conservative, September/October 2015</span></i><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: x-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"She says we are bourgeois."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: x-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"What?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: x-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"It means 'common,' but in a nice way."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: x-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> - "This Happy Breed," 1944</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: x-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Everyone
loves the middle class. Everyone claims to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">be</i>
middle class, some to put a gloss on their sketchy escutcheons, others to dodge
chastisement for their awkward riches. But in fact both the socioeconomic
reality and the concept of middle class have been turned on their heads, turned
into their opposites, and at the same time trivialized into a mere lifestyle
choice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Economically,
the middle classes were once proprietors, self-employed owners of property and
their own labor. Morally, they were once the equivalent of “solid citizens”:
decent, hard-working, law-abiding, temperate, proper, stable, staid, virtuous,
and - well, moral. The qualifications for being middle class have gotten a
whole lot looser, to say the least.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The
European term “middle classes” originally served to describe merchants,
tradesmen, investors and skilled craftsmen. The habitat of these classes was
the walled City – the burg, bourg or borough – whence came their appellation, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">les bourgeois</i>. The bourgeoisie occupied
a middle ground between the nobility and the lower classes of peasants and
servants.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">As
historian and professor Eugene Genovese used to say, “The bourgeoisie has been
rising for about 500 years. They basically had to muscle in on the lords.” Two
major traits defined this new class as it emerged from the chaotic end of
feudalism: a close association with money (capital), banking and investment,
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">social</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">independence</i>. Their city walls, their gold, their commercial
alliances, their education and their skills defended them from the rapacity of
the nobles to the point where they could evolve into the leading citizens of a
different kind of society.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">G.D.H.
Cole and Raymond Postgate, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Common
People: 1746 – 1946</i>, describe the aftermath of the battle of Culloden:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">This extinction of the older society completed a
process started long before, a process which alone made it possible for Britain
in the next hundred years to become the workshop of the world. There were now
no feudal lords to be conciliated or cajoled by the rising employing class.
Land-owners, bankers and employers, each with their own type of property to
support them, made their political bargaining and conducted their trading
without any semi-baronial powers, private jurisdictions or infeodated
supporters camped threateningly in the countryside.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Prior
to the Revolution, France’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Etats-généraux</i>
(Estates-General) comprised the clergy, the aristocracy, and the People
(everyone else). After 1789 the bourgeois element of the People – a serious and
truly revolutionary class – came to the fore and used the rage of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sans-culottes</i> and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">foule</i> to wipe out the aristocrats.
George Rudé’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Crowd in History: A
Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England 1730-1848</i> relates many
instances of the doomed peasant and cottage-industrial classes – “the hard and
black hands” – rising up to demand restoration of their ancient feudal rights,
only to be suppressed by the bourgeoisie once Property itself came under
attack. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Il faut en finir</i>!” Order had
to be restored. It was time for Louis-Philippe, the bourgeois king, to unfurl
the banner of “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Enrichissez-vous!</i>”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">By
the time Marx and Engels came along, the new antagonistic classes of capital
and wage labor were well established. According to the Marxian model, just as
the bourgeoisie had overthrown the absolute rule of church and noble, the
working class (wage-earners, laborers, common people, lower classes, plebeians,
the people, the mob, the masses) was destined to overthrow its new masters, the
capitalists who capitalized upon its alienated labor. “Property is theft!”
declared Proudhon. “We have been naught,/We shall be all!” “The middle class
owner of property,” declared Marx in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Communist Manifesto</i> of 1848, “must be swept out of the way and made
impossible.” Prophetic words.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">At
its height, this original middle class radiated dominance, competence and
rationality. It religiously embraced the sciences and their derived technologies
and was swept upward with those powers into a world beyond the wildest Utopian
dreams. In the words of Charles Morazé’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Triumph of the Middle Classes</i>:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The year 1900 was a wonderful one, when men were
proud to be middle-class, and to be Europeans. The fate of the whole world was
decided around green baize-covered tables in London, Paris or Berlin. …
Mobilized by steam, the planet’s riches were being shifted … on orders flashed
by telegraph in two or three minutes. … Not a single detail escaped the notice
of Europe’s financial capitals: they fixed the price of a tram ticket in Rio de
Janeiro, and the working hours of a coolie in Hong Kong.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The
world the bourgeoisie made opened countless paths to wealth and self-reliance
for even the humblest <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chrétien</i>, as
Paul Johnson documents so well in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Birth of the Modern</i>. The greatest elevation of human beings in history had
fashioned, out of “little men,” architects, engineers, shipwrights, road
builders, agriculturalists, inventors, lawyers, bankers, brokers, journalists,
industrialists, manufacturers, trader/adventurers, doctors, pharmacists, shop
owners, highly educated theologians and natural philosophers, and pursuers of a
hundred other useful professions.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Class Notes</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Volume
after volume has been devoted to the anthropology of class, its trappings, its
contradictions, its “tells” and secret handshakes. Here it is enough to remind
ourselves that today’s obsession with the middle class is rooted in the old,
old story of human self-classification. People sort, grade, gauge and rank each
other all day and all night.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Everyone
wants to be middle class because human beings need to think well of themselves,
or else endless misery and retribution ensue. Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb
called their book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hidden Injuries of
Class</i>, but most of these injuries are either quite noticeable or hidden in
plain sight. Sennett and Cobb discovered that the most marginal of America’s
working class would rather be perceived as middle class than revolt and
overthrow the rule of capital altogether <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">–
or even make more money</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Entire
nations suffer class anxiety. Adam Nicolson quotes unusually candid Greek
sources in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Geographic </i>(March 2015):</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">When the Greeks joined the EU in 1981, we felt like
a ship arriving in port, … that we were being treated as a proper part of
Europe for the first time. The euro crisis was a moment of guilt, shared by all
of us, a sense that somehow we were all responsible for the bad things that
were happening to us. It was a huge, national blow to self-esteem, a
confirmation of the Greeks’ worst fears, that we didn’t really belong in Europe
at all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Naturally
such humiliation is intolerable, and accounts for the continuing “violence of
shame” in Greece – herself, ironically, the birthplace of classical culture,
sedulously aped for centuries.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Older
societies are still processing their ancient class systems, which were actually
castes: defined conditions into which people were born and where they remained
all their lives. The New World posited itself as a classless society, although
it never was one, even at the outset. But in place of the Old World’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">better</i> than thou,” America’s mantra was
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">good</i> as thou.” Classes in the colonies founded by Great Britain
were fluid and porous; for example, the bourgeois cult of romantic love, as
opposed to arranged marriage, enabled many to “marry up”; and the still open
frontier permitted little men to grow grand, liberated from the constant sucker
punches of class.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The Center
Cannot Hold</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">In
contemporary usage, “bourgeois” has decayed to mean square, unfashionable,
boring, ordinary, lowbrow, narrow-minded, suburban, etc. The exclamation “How
bourgeois!” is not intended kindly. The word’s fate is similar to the way <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chrétien</i> migrated over time from
“Christian” (a fellow soul) to “cretin.” H.L. Mencken had this decay in mind
when he invented the terms “booboisie” and “Boobus Americanus.” Paul Fussell’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Class</i> ridicules their petty, shallow
status fixations. From captains of industry back down to “little men,” the
bourgeoisie has crumbled both linguistically and economically.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Circa
1800, 80% of Americans were self-employed. By 1870 it was 41%. By 1940 it was
18%. By 1967 it was only 9% (from Victoria Bonnell and Michael Reich, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Workers in the American Economy: Data on the
Labor Force</i>). Now – we are told it is only One Percent. What once was an ideal
– self-employment – is now damned as villainous greed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Middle
class, meanwhile, came to mean anyone who works for a living. It is not unusual
to see “middle class” and “working class” used interchangeably, which has led
to the cheesy equivalence of “white collar” and “blue collar.” Even the
hardcore unemployed are now eligible for elevation to the great middle. Anyone
who has clung to a part-time job or might get one via state largesse is
potentially middle class. Only “the rich” don’t qualify.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Middle
class, in other words, has completely lost its socioeconomic bearings.
“High-end” signifiers are fetishized as much by the wanna-be middle classes as
they are by the One Percent. The very concept of middle class has become
confounded with global issues of modernization, imperialism and cultural
hegemony. It is José Ortega y Gasset’s “revolt of the masses” on steroids. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The Muddled
Middle</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Everyone
agrees that the middle class pays the lion’share of taxes. It is deep in debt –
illiquid. It is “endangered.” It is being “squeezed,” “crippled,” “hollowed
out.” It suffers from erosion of net worth. Its atrophy is blamed for the
widening income gap. It is courted by both left and right with great vigor
during election years, each striving to outdo the other with violent praise for
its attributes. It is “the backbone of our economy.” The American middle class
is tasked with lifting the entire world out of recession.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Taoist
philosophy observes that the more a quality is spoken of - for instance, filial
piety - the less it is found in real life. Obsessive talk of the middle class
is everywhere. Opening a newspaper at random (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Washington Times</i> of February 20, 2015), we read:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">As he pushed a $500 billion federal investment in
infrastructure, Vice President Joseph R. Biden said: … “The middle class has
been slammed. They are in worse shape than they have ever been at any time since
the ‘20s … What’s the way to grow the middle class? Jobs. What’s the way to get
jobs?”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Biden’s
answer: “Generate” jobs via the magic of Keynesian government spending, a
repeat of the New Deal’s CCC and WPA.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">A
Google search on “Biden speech middle class” returns 702,000 hits; “Obama
speech middle class” returns 19.3 million. According to Mr. Biden, the middle
class is “the fabric that stitches together this country.” But it’s “currently
being killed.” During one of the 38 mentions of middle class in his 2014 stump
speech, the VP notoriously thundered that the middle class has been “left
behind” and “buried” – by the Obama administration’s own policies.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Meanwhile,
in his 2015 State of the Union address, the President preached the gospel of
“middle-class economics.” According to his Marx-haunted ghostwriters, that
means “Everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and plays
by the same set of rules.” The actual meaning is another tax increase on those
who still have enough wealth left to be worth swiping.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Health
and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell gloated that the billions of
dollars in subsidies disbursed to low-income people who sign up for Obamacare were
“further proof that the Affordable Care Act is working for the middle class” in
Food Stamp Nation. Robert Reich has said over and over that “inequality is bad
for everyone, not just for the middle class and poor,” and that income
redistribution must be engineered to raise the income of the middle class to “middle-class
levels,” whatever those are.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Just
after the 2012 election, Howard Dean revealed the left’s “radical” program to
save the middle class by destroying it when he said, “This is, initially, gonna
sound like heresy from a progressive. The truth is, everybody needs to pay more
taxes, not just the rich.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Elizabeth
Warren talks the new class war better than most. She’d love to just be able to come
out and yell about “the working class!” But she’s fanning the spent flames of a
fantasy. André Thirion’s book about impotent red intellectuals in Paris between
the wars was called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Revolutionaries
without Revolution</i>. What Elizabeth Warren keeps jabbing her forefinger at
is a workers’ movement without workers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Like
all other cynical champions of the mythic middle, Warren deliberately mischaracterizes
it. Middle class is not an income level but a material relationship to society.
What have vanished from all these leftist analyses are the key middle-class
elements of freedom, independence, self-sufficiency, ownership, entrepreneurship,
leadership and real social power. To echo Cole and Postgate, the essence of the
once-great middle class was that they possessed “their own type of property to
support them.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In any event, the 24/7 spin cycle has finally gagged on the
term middle class. Its untenability suddenly dawned on even the most zealously
ideological political operatives. All at once it was only too obvious that
there was no substantial middle class to rhapsodize over or pander to. As Amy
Chozick writes in <i>The New York Times</i> (May 11, 2015):</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
The once ubiquitous term “middle
class” has gone conspicuously missing from the 2016 campaign trail, as
candidates and their strategists grasp for new terms for an unsettled economic
era. The phrase, long synonymous with the American dream, now evokes anxiety,
an uncertain future and a lifestyle that is increasingly out of reach.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A family living paycheck to paycheck, heavily indebted and
sometimes even “food-insecure” – that’s not a middle class family. And nearly
half of Americans don’t even bother to pretend that’s what they are any more.
So instead let’s call them “ordinary Americans” (Bernie Sanders). “Everyday
Americans” (Hillary Clinton). “Hard-working men and women across America” (Ted
Cruz). “Hard-working taxpayers” (Scott Walker). “People who work for the people
who own businesses” (Rand Paul). Or simply “people who aren’t rich” (Marco Rubio).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Everyone
wanted to be middle class, but the word that best describes our country now is
proletarianization. In ancient Rome the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">proles</i>
(“offspring,” as in “prolific”) were “the class of society that had no wealth
and didn't own property. The only things proletarians had to offer were their
hard work and their children” (www.vocabulary.com). The overall scheme is to
force what’s left of “the backbone of America” to pay for its own dispossession
and disempowerment. Then our understandable class anxiety will be tranquilized
by government transfers to give us an illusory “leg up” classwise.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
middle class could only be destroyed in the name of the middle class. Everyone
loves the middle class, and everyone kills the thing he loves.</span></div>
Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-13598998118697707792015-01-15T17:09:00.000-08:002015-01-15T17:09:50.879-08:00The Bible of Hell<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Reporter</i>: "Are you a Mod or a Rocker?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Ringo</i>: "No, I'm a mocker."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">("A Hard Day's Night")</span> <br />
<br />
Now that <i>Je suis Charlie</i> has trended to its end, <i>Je ne suis pas Charlie</i> can safely re-emerge. The column below summarizes well the views of the push-back:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/11/joseph-curl-i-am-not-charlie/">http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/11/joseph-curl-i-am-not-charlie/</a><br />
<br />
Joseph Curl is a columnist I usually agree with, but in this case he has simply reverted to the Muslims' own justification for violent jihad. He asks several questions which he expects to be answered submissively. Here are my retorts.<br />
<br />
1. "Is it really the job of journalists to belittle religion, to mock the faithful's beliefs?"<br />
<br />
Hell yeah. The satirical weekly <i>CharlieHebdo</i> is not a "newspaper of record" like the Grey Lady, but the viciously cynical bane of every religion, faith, belief system, idol, hero, god, shibboleth, sacred cow, golden calf and "unexamined life." Anything that can't be ridiculed, that is "unfit to print," has a depressingly inevitable tendency to become tyrannical. The Frenchman Voltaire said it best: "I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." His admirer Thomas Jefferson added, "There is not a truth existing which I fear ... or would wish unknown to the whole world."<br />
<br />
2. "Should we ridicule and demonize those of other religions simply because we can?"<br />
<br />
Who is "we"? There have been individuals in all eras and places who deride the tender sentiments of their fellow man, and there always will be. Free speech doesn't mean pain-free, shock-free speech. Free speech is either an absolute right or a dead letter. It is not to be stripped away bit by bit by hounds baying for its blood.<br />
<br />
Have some humility, humans. What deity is harmed or angered by Man's mockery? Only the tin gods of intolerant belief systems like certain sects of Christianity and Judaism and most of Islam. (Currently Hinduism is displaying a greater urge to dominate under the Bharatiya Janata Party in India. Which leaves Buddhism - maybe.) The mockers among us do not "demonize," however: They themselves are demonized, considered demons. They rouse and raise doubt and most humans are mortally offended by doubt. People are clucking over the post-attack drawing of murdered <i>CharlieHebdo</i> cartoonist Georges Wolinski being comforted in the afterlife by one of Allah's mythical virgins, but it is just that hardcore relentless irreverence that he championed.<br />
<br />
3. "If <i>CharlieHebdo</i> wanted to anger Muslims, it succeeded. But was there ever any higher purpose, any constructive goal, in doing so? ... And, quite simply, what is the point?"<br />
<br />
Fortunately in America we don't have to go before tribunals that demand we justify our "higher purpose" or "constructive goal" or "point." If the government were turning a blind eye to and even subsidizing hate groups that advocate ethnic cleansing, say, of "infidels," then we might well object. Wait - the government <i>is</i> doing that. Using our tax money to finance terrorism against our nation. Moreover the government itself provokes far more jihadi rage by lording it over the Middle East than all the satirical magazines put together.<br />
<br />
Charlie's cartoons are "infantile" and they are "vulgar" - both Al-Jazeera and Bill Donohue of the Catholic League agree. Too bad. Infantile vulgarity is protected under "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God" - AKA the Bill of Rights - from being infringed upon by the state or any other power. As Tony Soprano would say, "[Forget] you if you can't take a joke."<br />
<br />
It is not the Charlies of the world who bomb and slash, hang, behead, imprison, lash and burn. It is they who do the ugly but necessary work of keeping us free whether we like it or not. They are the scribes of what William Blake called "the Bible of Hell, which the world shall have whether they will or no." The flame they insist on fanning brings enlightenment to the dark places of our minds. They instinctively know that intolerance, the entropy of consciousness, must constantly be pushed back. They know that laughter is the sane response to human folly. It is they who hear the laughter of the gods.<br />
<br />
<br />Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-87026205911804808712014-05-12T18:02:00.000-07:002014-05-12T18:02:01.112-07:00The Last of the Americans: Rockwell Kent and Our Times
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<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">by Marian Kester Coombs</span></i>
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<br /></div>
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Whatever time it is, it’s time to appreciate Rockwell Kent. Americans
of his kind are so rare we have to keep punching ourselves to believe they ever
existed. It took me five chance encounters with this semi-forgotten figure –
three in used bookstores and two in art museums – to realize how odd and wrong was
my ignorance of him.</div>
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Rockwell Kent was one of America’s best-known, most popular painters
and designers in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s. Born in 1882, he hailed from
Tarrytown, New York, heart of the Hudson River School of painting, and showed
artistic ability from an early age. His ancestral Kents and Rockwells had come ashore
more than two hundred years before; in his second autobiography, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s Me O Lord</i> (1955), Kent traces his
ancestry back through a long line of carpenters and fierce freedom-lovers who
built fortune upon fortune in the New World. He grew up a member of America’s
founding generations: privileged, ingenious, self-confident, and liberal, as in
free-thinking. That masterful sense of self got Kent through many a scrape and
ordeal as he blasted lustily through life.</div>
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Kent’s cohort missed having to serve in the two world wars,
and were too canny and well-educated to be raptured by jingoism; nonetheless
they may have felt the need to test themselves physically and mentally in more
extreme ways than normal precisely because of that lack of opportunity to
soldier. Surely this may account for some of the wild risks Kent repeatedly
ran. He exulted in surviving close encounters much as warriors glorify war,
having come through it unscathed. Nonetheless, he was a lifelong pacifist, a
lover of Peace, a hater of War and its perpetual lobby; and if he was never in
a position to conscientiously object to induction, Kent made up for it by refusing
to kowtow to HUAC and having his passport revoked by the State Department.</div>
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Rockwell Kent loved painting and drawing and the making of
all things, from instruments to dishware, books to houses. His graphic
illustrations, employing pen and ink, dry brush, lithography, wood engraving (xylography)
and block prints, reveal the training in architecture he received at Columbia.
But oil painting was his “first love,” and by 1903 he was pursuing it at the
New York School of Art, where he encountered both the elegant William Merritt
Chase and the raw Robert Henri of the art-for-the-masses Ashcan School. Henri
encouraged him to get out and paint Nature and The People <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">en plein air</i>, suggesting Kent move to rugged Monhegan Island off
Maine to get started.</div>
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The Monhegan years kindled Kent’s fame. His contact with the
island’s fisher folk profoundly affected him, and thenceforth he felt the need
to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">become</i> what he was painting:
lobsterman, laborer, house carpenter, furniture maker, well digger, lighthouse
keeper, sailor, farmer. When his Maine landscapes had their New York debut in
1907, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sun</i>’s art critic raved, “The
paint is laid on by an athlete of the brush.”<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>Fellow painters were awed by his power to capture the spirit of land
and life in so many media. Guy Pène du Bois (with envy) called his work
quintessentially “American.” Canada’s Group of Seven were profoundly influenced
by him. He had a beautiful hand.</div>
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Monhegan also led Kent to the first of three wives: Kathleen
Whiting, niece of grand eccentric painter Abbott Thayer. Their union lasted
from 1908 to 1925, and saw the birth of five surviving children. Kent’s constant
impulsive or perhaps compulsive flights to the ends of the earth – the Alaska
Territory, Greenland, Iceland, Tierra del Fuego – where he could paint in peace,
engorged with exotic new subject matter (like Thomas Cole at Mont Désert or Frederic
Edwin Church in the Andes); live simply amongst the hardy natives (like Tommy
in “Brigadoon”); confront his true self, which he (like Zane Grey) believed could
be encountered “in the wilderness alone”; and, a bit less airy-fairily, gather
material for books to sell to support everyone – inevitably distressed his marriages.</div>
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A classic Rockwell Kent situation befell the family when
Kent decided in 1914 to expatriate and paint in Newfoundland. They’d been there
scarcely a year before being deported on suspicion that Herr Kent was a German
spy: he yodeled and sang German songs as he strode about, named his second
daughter Hildegarde, and refused to wallow in anti-Kraut vituperation. But Kent
was simply a convinced contrarian. Ideologies meant nothing to him. He was as
enthused by Teddy Roosevelt’s exhaustive vigor as he was by the Wobblies’ selfless
camaraderie. His notion of being an American was to champion “the little man” –
the man for whom America had been invented.</div>
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Another typical “situation” was his sojourn on a remote
Alaskan island with eldest son Rocky, then nine years old. “In quietness the
soul expands,” wrote Kent; wilderness held the seed, the evergreen promise of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">freedom</i>, a promise that even democracies
continually betrayed. Anxious to provide for the family as well as slake his
growing passion for ascetic and aesthetic liberty in a Northern landscape, in
1918 Kent rented and rebuilt a lean-to on Resurrection Bay where the two of
them explored and beheld and communed. Although they both nearly perished more
than once, Kent returned after several months with the stuff of two
best-sellers (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wilderness: A Journal of
Quiet Adventure in Alaska</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
Northern Christmas</i>) profusely illustrated with vivid ink drawings, but more
important, with a trove of canvases and sketches that have been called the most
successful effort ever to reproduce the beauty of the far North – the cold gold
glare of the midnight sun, the glacier ice that absorbs red and yellow spectra
and reflects back purest blue, the infinite tones of white – what Douglas
Brinkley calls “the kaleidoscopic radiance of wild Alaska” and Kent called its
“luminous abyss.” Monet expressed the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">plein
air</i> painter’s struggle well: “<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I want to grasp the intangible. It's terrible
how the light runs out. Color, any color, lasts a second, sometimes three or
four minutes at most.”</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 1913, Kent was up in Winona,
Minnesota, constructing a mill when the Armory Show suddenly detonated without
him in New York. The snub stung him, but four years later, he himself broke
with the avant-garde by resigning from direction of the Society of Independent
Artists show over entries like Marcel Duchamp’s famous urinal. Along with
Hopper, Bellows, Wood, Curry and Benton, among others, Kent was not buying the
self-serving modernist myth that deliberate ugliness and nihilism were the
destiny of art.</span></div>
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In 1929, after returning from yet another near-fatal but
excitingly written and brilliantly illustrated adventure – yachting with two
other men from Newfoundland to Greenland, where they wrecked on a barren coast and
were rescued by Eskimos and Danes – Kent embarked upon yet another career as a
book illustrator. Moving easily in New York society, he designed colophons for
Viking Press, Random House and the Modern Library, logos still in use today. This
hectic urban phase included illustrations, influenced by his own memoirs of Greenland
(<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">N by E</i>) and Tierra del Fuego (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Voyaging</i>) for a three-volume limited
edition and Random House trade edition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moby-Dick,</i>
which revived the fame and fortunes of that nearly forgotten classic. The 30s
saw him much in demand by the publishing world: for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beowulf</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Canterbury Tales,</i>
the complete works of Shakespeare, the memoirs of Casanova, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Decameron</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Candide</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Faust</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leaves of Grass</i> and many more. Kent also
produced a spate of satirical drawings for the likes of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vanity Fair</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harper’s
Weekly</i> under the name “Hogarth Jr.” During this period <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker</i> was able to tease, “That day will mark a
precedent/Which brings no news of Rockwell Kent.”</div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Diva Renée Fleming believes that the
most important quality for a voice is that it be “distinctive” – think of
Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Callas. Kent’s work was certainly of its time (and we all
know the style of one’s own time is “transparent,” invisible to those who are
within it), and yet is instantly recognizable as his, rippling with individual
energy; his kinetic, confessional writing style prefigures New Journalism. </span></div>
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Meanwhile, there was politics.</div>
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Kent’s career bestrode the Age of the Manifesto. The mad
intensity of the ‘20s, the “almost complete breakdown of our whole industrial
machine” in the ‘30s, and the escalating slide toward war of the ‘40s forced
artist to become activist. As he explained in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This Is My Own </i>(1940), the first of two formal autobiographies (though
all his writings are autobiographical),</div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">I
believe in Peace and, as a clear and never-failing voice for Peace, in Art. … I
am ashamed of it; ashamed, … of my childlike innocence, my adolescent
credulousness, my fatuous belief. Roosevelt and the New Deal – can’t we recall
what faith we had in them in ’33? … Just let us live in peace. … Deeply and
from my heart, in utter reverence I pray: God damn them all.</span></div>
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Pacifism and noninterventionism were about to be
criminalized when in 1939 Kent was called before the House Un-American
Activities Committee to explain his views and associations. He denied,
honestly, being a Communist Party member, but would not disavow his red friends
and associates, who were legion. For instance, he had designed posters for the
IWW, contributed graphics to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Masses</i>,
slipped rebellious slogans into his WPA murals, and served as an official of
the International Workers Order insurance society. In 1950 the government
revoked his passport; and in 1953 the Orwellian-named “Permanent
Investigations” Subcommittee tried to sweat him again on the subject. Senator
McCarthy interrupted the artist’s defense by snapping, “I’ll not hear a lecture
from you, Mr. Kent.” Kent retorted, “You certainly won’t – I get paid for my
lectures!”</div>
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Emerging from this inquest, where he had refused to answer
“Are you now or have you ever been?,” Kent was accosted by reporters who asked
the same question. This time he chortled scornfully, “No I am not and have
never been … and practically everybody knows that!” It was not until 1958 that
the Supreme Court in a landmark decision ruled his passport be restored
immediately.</div>
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After all the bad PR, however, Kent underwent what critic
Edward Hoagland calls “steep neglect of his work.” Galleries and shows were
closed to him, collectors no longer collected him. In 1960 he defiantly donated
eighty paintings and ten times as many drawings and prints to the Soviet Union,
where they repose to this day, in the Hermitage and Pushkin museums, among
others. In 1967 the Soviets awarded him the Lenin Peace Prize, most of which he
gave away to charities … in North Vietnam.</div>
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Rockwell Kent was a gadfly, and a bit of a crank, who “just
wanted to be left alone”: an egotistical socialist, cosmopolitan isolationist, patriotic
globalist, home-loving adventurer, Christian nature-worshipper, avant-garde
antimodernist, philandering family man, “deeply misanthropic” humanitarian (per
Hoagland), democratic individualist, ecstatic engineer, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bon vivant</i> laborer – in many ways the painterly equivalent of resistance
poet Robinson Jeffers.</div>
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Between us moderns and men like Kent and Jeffers there is
not just a cultural but an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anthropological</i>
difference. The right-wing individualist of today is the social liberal of
yesterday. But the likenesses between Kent and William Blake, born 125 years
earlier, are so great that the former seems almost the latter’s reincarnation.
Both were mystics, worshippers of Liberty, yearners after the natural and
elemental Life, artists as well as philosophers, believers in Free Love,
calligraphers as well as painters, illustrators of their own writings, accused
of sedition, and hauled before tribunals. In addition Kent learned from Blake how
to draw the “Human Form Divine.” Unlike Blake and most other Symbolists, however,
Kent was adept at rendering individuals body and soul. His portraits of
Greenlanders in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Salamina</i> (1935) are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">alive</i>. Unlike fellow landscape artists
Maynard Dixon and the Group of Seven, he caught not only that last thin yellow
ray of Arctic sun on the shoulder of the mountain but well-wrought parties of
humans and their gear. Kent’s vision of man in nature was an unusually balanced
one, reflecting his own Renaissance balance of gifts.</div>
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Quoth a Renaissance proverb: “A cat may look at a king.” It
is understood that feline nature disdains servility. British law goes so far as
to define cats as “free spirits,” “wanderers” – unlike dogs, which are property
that can stray and even trespass. Cats “are allowed to roam outside” and “are
not considered domesticated animals” under American law as well. A Kent too may
look at a king. His story, like the story of resisters such as Edward Snowden
today, demonstrates the necessity for multiple power centers, especially as the
world continues to massify into a smothering, elite-ridden globaloma. It is not
necessary that the center chosen for refuge be 100% righteous – merely that it
exist. The enemy of your enemy may not be your friend, but at least he differs
from your enemy.</div>
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Rockwell Kent, the erstwhile communist, reposes beneath a
stone that reads “This Is My Own” (from Scott’s “Breathes there a man with soul
so dead/Who never to himself hath said,/’This is my own, my native land?’”). He
died in 1971 on his Plattsburgh farm, called Asgaard after Nordic myth, just up
the river from his New York birthplace, near the Vermont and Canadian borders.</div>
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A
friend of Blake wrote after his death, “His aim single, his path straightforward,
and his wants few; so he was free, noble, and happy. He was a man without a
mask.” Rockwell Kent, too, lived a free man - one of the last of the Americans.</div>
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Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-50357742542495778882013-07-08T12:48:00.000-07:002014-02-02T06:22:53.050-08:00All the Rage<h1>
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Marian Kester Coombs</span></span>
</h1>
<h1>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">February 2012-July 2013</span></i></span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: large;">1</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
Pity the poor immigrant: the newborn human infant. It has been forced from an Eden of One, a form-fitting world where all is provided and nothing demanded. From the moment it hits the outside air, it begins to suffer accelerated depreciation, like a brand-new car just driven off the lot. And so it subsides, writhing, degree by degree, a magnificent balloon losing heft and altitude until it lies full length upon the ground, in the “footprint” of its own grave ... "Oh, my beautiful wickedness! Ohhh, what a world, what a world … "<br />
<br />
The litany of necessary losses (Judith Viorst's term, circa 1998) is one indignity heaped upon another. First let's name this tragic creature doomed to be tormented by such losses. Imperial Self - Infant Emperor - Infantile Narcissist - Infantile Megalomaniac - Raging Ego - how about Raging Infant? For to call a newborn’s inborn drive the “human spirit” or “élan vital” or "quest for identity" or "desire" or "passion" or even "lust" falls short: it is a burning Rage to live and to prevail against all comers, a brightly burning torch which the world immediately starts trying to quench. "You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end," sighs J.M. Barrie in <i>Peter Pan</i>.<br />
<br />
Once borne, the creature must now depend upon its Mother, a disturbingly capricious being, instead of the trusty umbilical cord. She can be … unreliable. Her services may be … intermittent. Her responses may leave … something to be desired … Civilization and its discontents!<br />
<br />
Then the chill dawn of a suspicion: the creature must share this sketchy Mother with another - perhaps multiple others. The horror of a sibling may arise and threaten to eclipse its beautiful wickedness altogether. If that were not enough, it next appears that the Raging Infant must appease entities besides the Mother: it must not hog all the toys, it must not bite, it must play nicely. Meanwhile, as the outside world starts to intrude more rudely than ever, the Infant becomes acquainted with the quaint, absurd notion that it may not be considered the very best at everything, that it may not be universally adored, that it may in fact be judged and even rejected.<br />
<br />
Come adolescence, and the unspeakable indignities only compound. In the crucial competition to start pairing off, some truly outrageous insinuations about the adequacy of the Infant may be made. Bullying is a fairly ruthless attempt by males to eliminate the competition of other males, and by females to do the same to other females. Yet at this very time the Infant is exhorted more and more to view itself with some baffling thing called “objectivity” or “relativity,” which only further curdles its narcissism.<br />
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<div>
Juvenile delinquency and criminality are often misinterpreted as acute insecurity and self-loathing, but are prompted by quite the opposite: injured <i>amour-propre</i>. Hell hath no fury like an ego scorned. Each individual is like a burnt offering to the god of his or her Self, dedicated to being – (<i>worshipped</i>) – recognized, remembered, identified, gratified, esteemed, admired, attended to, accepted, well-regarded, valued, cherished, loved, wanted, needed; to feeling proud, powerful, important, useful; and to mattering. Suicide is the ultimate bid to prove oneself God-like, by ending the world.<br />
<br />
You may demur that not everybody is aflame at so high a temperature, and it’s true, there are degrees of Rage. William Blake thought that “Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.” In other words, the weak are too weak to be “bad” and the strong are too strong to be “good.” You can be a crazed egotist only to the extent of your own particular endowment of unholy energy. Or perhaps only to the extent you are unable to mask your egotism. Nietzsche certainly believed this, calling it the Will to Power.<br />
<br />
In <i>Winesburg, Ohio,</i> the “grotesques” whom Sherwood Anderson introduces to us all have one thing in common: They are completely insane on the subject of themselves. One of the more sober grotesques interacts with Anderson’s “hero” thus:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When George Willard went to work for the Winesburg Eagle he was besieged by Joe Welling. Joe envied the boy. It seemed to him that he was meant by Nature to be a reporter on a newspaper. “It is what I should be doing, there is no doubt of that,” he declared, stopping George Willard on the sidewalk before Daugherty’s Feed Store. His eyes began to glisten and his forefinger to tremble. “Of course I make more money with the Standard Oil Company and I’m only telling you,” he added. “I’ve got nothing against you but I should have your place. I could do the work at odd moments. Here and there I would run finding out things you’ll never see.”</blockquote>
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R.D. Laing wrote, “Yet all [the human heart] asks is that I let it love me, and not even that.” Sentimental nonsense! The human heart asks infinitely more than that. It demands to be loved, loved exclusively. It tells the Greatest Story Ever Told: itself! Its every action from the most banal intimate gesture to the most grandiose spectacle is a howl for attention to be paid: “My name is [your name here], King of Kings:/Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”<br />
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What’s the formula for success at any social gathering? Ask people about themselves, then actually (at least appear to) listen, and you will be accounted the most fascinating person on the planet. And what do you hear when people start to talk? That the world revolves around them, that but for the machinations of idiots they would be colossi, that had they only been heeded the world would be a wonderland, that they got a raw deal but lived to have the last laugh. Et cetera.<br />
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Fandom is but self-love writ large.<br />
<br />
The Golden Rule is based on the frank acknowledgment that self comes first: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”<br />
<br />
"Love thy neighbor as thyself" recognizes the tenderness with which "thyself" is loved.<br />
</div>
<div>
The tears we shed upon being moved by a heroic act of self-sacrifice are for the fact that by this act our own wickedness has been preserved.</div>
<div>
<br />
The saintly selflessness of saints is the greatest egotism of all.<br />
<br />
The hero or martyr for his part, like Achilles, actually prefers physical death to the death of his fame:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet my end. If I stay here and fight, I shall lose my safe homecoming, but I will have a glory that is unwilting: whereas if I go home, my glory will die, but it will be a long time before death itself shall take me.</blockquote>
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Even our grief at the loss of loved ones is self-pity for the blow to our own dear selves, our ego-armature, our possessions, our retinue. Our mourning is more than a little like the North Koreans hysterically bemoaning their dead leader, fearing ghostly (or political) revenge if they don’t. And mother-love is anything but selfless. The selfish gene, as Richard Dawkins called it, loves not just you but all your <i>kind</i> – nation, race, class, family – and is happy to rain death upon your enemies to advance its own fortunes.<br />
<br />
To grow up is supposed to mean the progressive surrendering of infantile delusions of grandeur, but they are never, ever completely outgrown. “Anger issues” all stem from the thwarted Infant lashing out enraged at an uncooperative, indifferent world. “Road rage” is a special case: the encapsulation of the automobile creates a sort of hardened ego-state that proceeds to vigorously begrudge all other capsules the “right” of way, with much swerving, tailgating, sudden braking and other moves that act out the Infant’s intolerant reaction to others who dare get in its way.<br />
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Sociopaths (we all have some sociopath in us) are just infants masquerading as adults; nothing and no one is real to them except themselves. They never mean to hurt anyone – by which they mean they never meant to get caught or punished for hurting anyone. Drugs like Ecstasy, cocaine and heroin fleetingly recapture the infantile state of senseless bliss, absolute power, the amoeba-self engulfing an ecstatic world …<br />
<br />
As deftly portrayed in <i>Peter Pan</i>, Mr. Darling throws an infantile tantrum over having to take some evil-tasting medicine and scapegoats the innocent Nana, thus making it possible for Peter to abscond with Wendy, John and Michael:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
His proud heart was nearly bursting. … It was dreadful the way all the three [children] were looking at him, just as if they did not admire him. … It was all owing to his too affectionate nature, which craved for admiration.</blockquote>
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Eventually the Infant finds someone willing to mutually “settle,” and real babies may come. The mirror that offspring hold up to the Infant is often unsettling – a frequent cause for divorce. In time the job proves disappointing, the boss is an *******, the career is not what it should be; and finally the Infant is compelled to notice that it is fairly rapidly being ushered out of the world - given the bum’s rush in fact – and that Death, the ultimate outrage, may dare to lay hands upon its beautiful wickedness. <i>Et tu, Ego?</i><br />
<br />
The aptly-named Me Generation or Baby Boom, 50 million tiny tyrants strong, disbelieves not only in death but in the fact of age itself. Youth is a right and aging an affront, the skunk at the garden party. Typical Boomers of both sexes have had multiple midlife crises by the time they hit 50. The author of the epigram “American lives have no second act” should have had in mind Boomers and their very rare transition from infancy to adulthood.<br />
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Were people less beautifully wicked in the past than they are now? History suggests that hard times – depressions, world wars, famines – force people to mature whether they want to or not, hence the eerie “adultness” of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. They were so “grown up” (i.e., generous and giving toward us). They were “the Greatest.” Ronald Reagan reminded us of our dads.<br />
<br />
Women, particularly those who’ve lived off their looks, have always clung more bitterly to Youth than men have, and may more readily be forgiven, since older women face such painful demotion in society. Female beauty is cruelly dependent on neoteny, the retention of juvenile characteristics, while men are permitted to get at least a bit craggy and silvery. George Orwell admired the tenacity of one beldame he encountered whilst Down and Out in Paris and London:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[She] was quite sixty years old, and she stood at the sink thirteen hours a day, six days a week, the year round; she was, in addition, horribly bullied by the waiters. … It was strange to see that in spite of her age and her life she still wore a bright blonde wig, and darkened her eyes and painted her face like a girl of twenty. So apparently even a seventy-eight-hour week can leave one with some vitality.</blockquote>
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Men have greater trouble kicking true infantile narcissism than do women, however. It has been speculated that it’s easier for daughters to separate from their mothers, who are less jealous of “rivals” (suitors), but mothers may go on to be the authoresses of the most hopeless cases of narcissism in their sons. These enablers encourage their sons to see every problem as everyone’s fault but their own; each failure is excused, explained away, with many a sympathetic cluck and roll of the eye. Never does such a mother admit that "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/But in ourselves, that we are underlings."<br />
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It’s dangerous to let the Infant out to play, but it’s fun at first, and so easy. Lovers tempt each other’s latent narcissism with coos of “Ooh, baby, baby.” Like waving a glass of Scotch under the nose of an alcoholic, this temptation can reawaken the Rage-prone inner infant with very unfortunate results, as thousands of estranged spouses and children could attest if they hadn’t been murdered. Look at the monstrous behavior of Nero, Caligula, Commodus and other Roman emperors; like all others given absolute power, they descended to absolute depravity.<br />
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Abortion is now a sacrament, the only one Infants care about. You might think they would identify with actual infants and want to protect the genuine version of themselves, but no, again the opposite is true. The Infant is mortally jealous of the young and loudly makes known it has no intention of ever saddling itself with any. Pets are the new kids, far more gratifying and adoring.<br />
<br />
And what are economic bubbles but infantile wishful thinking? Something for Nothing! Sounds too good to be true, so we can’t help believing it! Besides, someone else will pay if it doesn’t pan out.<br />
<br />
Like lovers, advertisers too play a role in seducing the Infant. “You deserve the best,” “What are you waiting for?,” “Go ahead – indulge yourself,” etc. Whatever you want is OK because You want it. Think of all that is now shrilly celebrated and once was frowned upon. TGIF, “snow days,” “I’d rather be ________ing [anything but working].” “Forbidden” “decadent” desserts, “Chocolate is good for you!,” junk food. Binge drinking, marijuana legalization, “spice.” Garbage mouth (“like” and “y’know,” cursing, obscenities) and rudeness. Tats, piercings, wacked-out hair, the unshaven just-got-outta-bed look. Comic books (“graphic novels”), video gaming, splatter movies, pornography, rap, gambling, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!” and numberless other polymorphous perversions. The New York Times says the latest lesbian vampire flick possesses “a distinctive sensibility,” blah blah blah. It’s cool to be a nerd or geek or fanboy, not a man.<br />
<br />
Of course acquiring the advertised product or service is unsatisfying because you can’t buy what you truly hunger for – power, admiration, indelibility – goods that must be freely bestowed by other people. The dissatisfaction with commodities fosters susceptibility to other forms of entitlement ideology. The political parties work ceaselessly to embolden bums and bum out responsible people. It’s the old shakedown: for the Poor, the Children, the Have-Nots, the Underprivileged, Fairness, Justice - all just crafty, indirect, passive-aggressive tactics for dominating and ripping off others. Observant philosophers have called the technique ressentiment, the superficial paradox of the “servant” lording it over the “master.”<br />
<br />
Unearned affluence never satisfies, it just stimulates further demands, more discontent, more Rage. “Enough” has no meaning to the Infant. The entitlements pall quicker and quicker, until at last you have the Occupy movement howling about some mythical dearth of privileges and “hope.” They are literally <i>incapable of being made to feel special enough</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">2</span></div>
<br />
Denial of recognition to individuals can be very dangerous. But even more dangerous is denial of recognition to entire groups within society, and to entire nations within the “global community.” What is a person or people not capable of when its self-love has been violated? It will plot to make endless war or at least endless mischief.<br />
<br />
There is a very practical reason for the need to feel oneself wanted, valued and useful. The instinct to reign over all other wills is perfectly consonant with the drive of any social animal to be considered competent and thus essential to the group. Incompetent or inessential members are turned out or left by the wayside when the tribe or troop moves on. The Infant’s pugnacious “I can do it myself!” signals loud and clear “You need me, I can carry my own weight.”<br />
<br />
Now we get to the positive life-affirming qualities of Raging Infancy.<br />
<br />
It is the inner voice that shouts “Don’t go to sleep!” when you’re freezing, “Keep going!” when you’re about to drop from exhaustion, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light!” as Death approaches, "Next time's the charm!" when your latest love object eludes you. “Attention must be paid” is not just atrociously bad dialogue but human truth: we are, each and every one of us, precious and irreplaceable. If one of us is not, then none of us is. It is so because we are made to will it so. Our belief must correspond to something real and true about the universe, or else it would not have evolved and persisted.<br />
<br />
Egotism must have huge survival value as well, since after a thousand thousand thousand years all beings continue to be born with it. It may be thought of as a fuel cell that powers even the tiniest creature throughout its life, “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower,” until the fuel at last runs out. To be born without the Rage is to be an egg without a yolk. Just as the body is not designed to eat only what it needs to merely subsist, so the self packs on “ego-fat” against the dark days of adoration-famine that are sure to come.<br />
<br />
If you follow fearlessly the ancient advice to “Know thyself,” you will see this truth wherever you look, and it can only enhance the humbling intensity of your own experience of life. Robert Burns reworked the idea as “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us/To see oursels as ithers see us!” But how little we should care to see ourselves thus …<br />
<br />
The Rage is infinite, the ability to sate it, finite. “And in the end, the love you take/Is equal to the love you make” – a pretty thought. The Infant wants only one small thing: to feel important, admired and necessary. Is this so much, too much to ask? In a world of seven billion souls, is there not enough “positive regard” to go around? “Celebrities” receive far more than their share, a sometimes lethal dose, while most individuals starve on too little. It would seem there is not enough Love in the whole universe to meet that simple need to be esteemed.<br />
<br />
Capitalism is the absolute worse system ever devised to order human affairs, except, of course, for all the others. Capitalism is the only economic system that even begins or pretends to accommodate man’s Rage (and Judeo-Christianity is one religion that compassionately acknowledges it, rewarding faith and reverence with ego-stroking wealth and success). Capitalism depends upon “naked” self-interest to power an engine of innovation and motivation that has made it a raging triumph for the past 300 years. Every man's home is his castle because Everyman is King. This philosophy is not "cynical" - it works because it is rooted in natural truth. In fact the more forcibly communitarian the society, the more darkly selfish the populace.Two words: Soviet Union.<br />
<br />
“Capital” understands that human beings are overjoyed to slave away for their own and their kindred’s benefit. Hence its Declaration that each of us is "endowed by [the] Creator with certain unalienable Rights, [among which are] Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Tapping even a fraction of that free joy, that bottomless energy, that infinite taking of pains in the interest of the self is like harnessing nuclear reactions on the surface of the sun. And this is why, for all the catastrophes that mindless politicians are shoving us toward, we will rise phoenix-like from the flames of our own destruction, singed but singing yet the great ode of Life: Long live My Self!<br />
<br />
<i>Le Soleil, le foyer de tendresse et de vie,<br /> Verse l'amour brûlant à la terre ravie ...</i><br />
<br />
The Sun, of tenderness and life the hearth, <br />
Pours burning love on the delighted earth - (Rimbaud)</div>
Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-47578312401476125342012-10-06T10:16:00.000-07:002013-04-17T11:41:07.064-07:00GLOBAL COOLING<style>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">April 2004-August 2009-June 2012</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Remember Marshall McLuhan, the pop mass-media guru? To
cite him now seems as dated as talk of Swinging London. But his insights - the
global village, the medium is the message (or the "massage"), the
interchangeability, instantaneity and simultaneity of electronic media - have
been so thoroughly accepted and absorbed that they seem like self-evident
truths.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of the points McLuhan made about television is that
it's a "cool" medium, by which he meant passive, pacifying, one-way,
noninteractive, the triumph of appearances. The TV emotes and orates, the
spectator merely gazes, eyes glazing over. Haskell Wexler's 1969 film
"Medium Cool" borrowed McLuhan's terminology to warn against a social
order that turns even the most horrific events into "spectacular"
entertainment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>"Medium Cool" was shot documentary style during
the riotous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago; at one point the police lob
a tear gas canister nearby and someone shouts, "Look out, Haskell, it's
real!" The mob chants, "The whole world is watching! The whole world
is watching!" In the last frames, Wexler films a car crash that abruptly
wipes out some of his lead characters. He fixates on the scene, with no move to
rush to the rescue, then slowly turns his camera upon the audience as though to
accuse us ("<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toi! Hypocrite voyeur</i>!")
of complicity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That same year (the famous <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Soixante-huit</i>), Situationist theoretician Guy Debord was moved to
write a related critique called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Society
of the Spectacle</i>. Among its many theses:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The basically
tautological character of the Spectacle [late capitalist society] flows from
the simple fact that its means are at the same time its goal. It is the sun
that never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire
surface of the world and bathes endlessly in its own glory. ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The movement of
banalization, under the shimmering diversions of the Spectacle, dominates
modern society the world over and at every point where the developed
consumption of commodities has multiplied the roles and the objects to choose
from in appearance. ... The smug acceptance of that which exists can also be
combined into one, with purely spectacular rebellion: this translates the
simple fact that dissatisfaction itself became a commodity as soon as economic
abundance was able to extend its production to the treatment of such a raw
material. ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The Spectacle is the
preservation of unconsciousness within the practical change of conditions of
existence. ...</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Separation</span></i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">
is the alpha and the omega of the Spectacle. ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The success of the
economic system of separation is the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">proletarianization
of the world.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Translation by Black & Red, 1970)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Had trouble following this typically French effusion of
hyperbole and abstract dogmatism/dogmatic abstraction? No problem: I will now
try to trace the singular evolutionary history of Cool. For it may well be a
"simple fact" that capitalist development inevitably
"objectifies" all human existence into falsity and unreality and
alienation and living death, but it accomplishes this by material and not by abstract
means.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>First, to define our term.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>"Cool" has long been and remains our society's
sovereign aesthetic and highest accolade. Back in my grandparents’ day, to say
with a certain emphasis “That’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fine</i>”
was to confer hearty approval; “fine” has now drifted into meaning “OK.” Many another
slang modifier has come and gone - copacetic, peachy, swell, dandy, keen,
sharp, neat, nifty, swift, sweet, far out, gone, wild, crazy, outtasight, boss,
wicked, groovy, fab, gear, super, right-on, rad, tite, tuff, gnarly, awesome,
mad, brilliant, fly, ba-aad, gangsta, phat. But Cool has endured. It has
outlasted its old antagonist, "square." Even the venerable
"hip" (not to mention hip's once red-hot mama "hep," which
predates the 1890s) now comes equipped with quotation marks like a pair of
crutches. Only Cool is the timelessly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in</i>
term for "in," the equivalent of "ideal" as well as the
code word for "unbeatable." Cool is the preferred term even in
foreign languages, Spanish, French, Italian, German: It is too Cool to need
translation. It is the world's coolest word for Cool.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A person can be Cool, as can a thing or a whole
situation: "Hey, it's Cool." One's Cool can be kept, or lost. You
play it Cool until you blow your Cool. "Be Cool" is always excellent
advice. To be unable to stay Cool is very, very - unCool. Cats, compared to
dogs, are Cool. Smoking cigarettes is Cool, even if you don’t smoke Kools.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cool has had many deployments over the centuries. The
most heated passion can cool off. Revenge has long been a dish best served up
cold. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sangfroid </i>was considered a fine
attribute by the French, so indispensable a word that the English borrowed it
without translation. For “cooler heads to prevail” was a welcome outcome. But
the low temperature of cold-blooded murder was not so welcome; better to have
been hot-blooded and thus escape the penalty of death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The American
Language</i>, H.L. Mencken (who is trustworthy save on the subject of bathtub
gin) traced the emergence of Cool's modern connotations to the early
20th-century subculture of gangs and juvenile delinquency. As the ethnic
composition of urban gangs shifted, so did the usage of various slang terms. At
its earliest, being "cool" apparently referred to "restraint in
manner or dress," in contrast to the flashier fashions of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nouveau riche</i> underworld. As a black
urban underclass began to grow and take shape, the Cool Cat was born, and Cool
came to mean a kind of feigned physical depletion: “[S]ex, it is believed,
depletes physical strength and hence many cats affect languorous movements,
even to a limp handshake, in order to avoid being classed as [not having had
sex recently]," wrote Mencken. He neatly nailed the type:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cool cat</i> - and all aspire to this temperature - is one who knows he
has stumbled on the basic truths and eternal verities and is always well
organized within, cautious but not fearful, reserved, inarticulate, and much of
the time <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stoned</i> on wine, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pot</i> ... , heroin, or an overdose of Zen
Buddhism. [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Emphases in original</i>.]</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cool is pure ideology, a word/idea with perennial power
to evoke some enviable, desirable, impregnable state of being. The ultimate
fantasy, it has developed a thousand shades of covert, coded meaning that
resonate within the modern psyche and its symbols. The secret self-portrait of
Cool that emerges is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>calm and
collected, Apollonian, poised, unaffected by others, judgment-proof, closed yet
loose, relaxed yet vigilant, disengaged, reserved, removed, unmoved,
impervious, imperturbable, detached, unattached, unreceptive, nonreactive,
unresponsive, uninvolved, disinterested, uninterested, objective, noncommittal,
unsentimental, aloof, uncommitted, blank, neutral, immune, sated, languid,
unflappable, dispassionate, impassive, passive, evasive, elusive, clinical, incurious,
unconcerned, untouched, unreachable, inviolate, self-sufficient, nerveless, unfeeling,
emotionless, indifferent, uncaring, ungiving, withholding, withdrawn, distant,
remote, superior, skeptical, disillusioned, ironic, agnostic, latent,
undeclared, hidden, guarded, alien, separate, asocial, insular, impersonal,
opaque, standoffish, unruffled, unsympathetic, unenthusiastic, negative,
rejecting, sneering, disdainful, vaguely contemptuous, faintly amused, cruel, cynical,
bored, amoral, reptilian, bloodless, heartless, tough, hard, frigid. (Did I
mention “cold”?)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cool is a stance - of ironic distance, of implied
critique, of a kind of paradoxical Outsider superiority. Coolest of both
worlds:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>untouchable Insider and
untouchable Outsider. The face of Cool is a mask of irony. The facial muscles
are slack, impassive, the eyes neither fully open nor fully focused (certainly
not upon <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i>), the mouth unyielding,
unreadable. It is the face of the dominant partner in a social exchange, of one
with higher status confronted by an inferior, of the passive-aggressive bully.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For this is why Cool is so prized: In a world full of
people desperate for just one blessed drop of recognition, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the refusal to recognize</i> confers and conveys immense power. In any
contest, the one who cares least about the outcome has the advantage. To dredge
up another hoary old relic, Transactional Analysis, Cool means never having to
give as much as, much less more than, you take in a “social transaction.” It is
your infallible guide to Okayness: I’m okay, you’re not okay. Beneath the mask,
of course, lurks constant wariness: Am I getting over? What can I do to
reinforce the message?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When and where does this attitude first invade Western
culture? When does it rise to predominance? It is certainly present in the
fatal wit of Oscar Wilde. In the specifically American cultural experience, a
Cool sneer becomes detectable among the “social” novelists and poets after the
Civil War, most markedly in the biting sarcasm of Ambrose Bierce and the later
Mark Twain. The timing of this phenomenon reminds us that war has a vast
coarsening effect upon society. Zane Grey lamented this fact after World War I;
and post-World War II American society was as unlike its predecessor as the
latter was unlike Puritan New England. The Vietnam War mainlined drugs, obscene
language and nihilism into the culture as never before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One particular poem from the 1890s, assigned to be read
by generations of American secondary school students, offers a kind of template
of Cool: Edward Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Corey.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">He was a gentleman
from sole to crown,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Clean favored, and
imperially slim ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">In fine, we thought
that he was everything</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">To make us wish that
we were in his place. ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">And Richard Corey, one
calm summer night,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Went home and put a
bullet through his head.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>How different is the tone of this poem from others that
treated tragically or heroically of life and death and used to be widely
memorized and recited. Collins’ “How Sleep the Brave,” Bryant’s “Thanatopsis,”
Henley’s “Invictus,” Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young,” Burns’ “Sweet
Afton,” Brooke’s “The Soldier,” Hopkins’ “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child,”
Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar.” The tone of “Richard Corey” is callous and
contemptuous. It foreshadows the culture of mockery that rules us now. Not all
of Robinson’s poetry is like “Richard Corey,” but he is best remembered for it
and for the equally mocking “Miniver Cheevy.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A similar effect was produced by Edgar Lee Masters’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spoon River Anthology</i> (1915), subtly
snide epitaphs of fellow citizens at rest in the graveyard of a small Illinois
town. How easy it proved to mock the dead. In 1919 Sherwood Anderson extended
the technique to the vignettes of his influential <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Winesburg, Ohio</i>, with its compulsive, repetitive listing of "grotesques." By 1921 Sinclair Lewis had built an entire novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Main Street</i>, on a sneering dismissal of
Midwestern “boosterism.” And thenceforth in novel after novel (then film after
film), as has been noted many times, the Antihero begins to avert his
world-weary gaze from the tedious melodrama of the masses. Even when he wants
and needs to be a hero - even when the script requires it, as in “Casablanca”
or “Shane” - the code of Cool demands that he wrap himself in many layers of
reluctance, cynicism, alienation, mixed motives, split decisions and ambivalence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Satire and social criticism, of course, are important,
valid goals of literature, and irreverent or crusading impulses have animated
much great art from earliest times. Rabelais and Cervantes made fun of the
human comedy, as had Aristophanes long before them. There are none more
unsparingly severe than Hugo, Zola or Dostoyevsky, nor more sensitive to
injustice that Byron or Shelley or Flaubert or Dickens or Tolstoy, nor more
alive to the absurdity of human beings than Shaw, Shakespeare, Balzac or
Moliere. But the stance of these writers was not Cool; it was at worst one of
outrage against cruelty, hypocrisy, abuse of power and the tragic waste of
human hopes. Humanistic satire has a particular, definable aim, a wrong it
seeks to redress, while Cool is fundamentally idle, training its sights on
everything indiscriminately. All that Cool seeks is that triumphant “Gotcha!”
moment, no matter what it takes to achieve. Cool serves no moral purpose, even
as it pretends to a deliberately vague moral superiority.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> (Dostoyevsky, for example, presaged Cool in the nihilism of the Underground Man, whose fate was to be convinced that "Nothing matters." In the great spiritual wrestling match that is <i>Notes from Underground</i>, never resolved is the question "Which is better - cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?")</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The demimonde of jazz and junk in the 1930s and 40s was a
genuine Cool scene, later worshipfully recreated by the small bohemian enclaves
of the Beats in their “gone” world. There the slow-developing, mainstream Cool
of the Antihero began to join forces with an actual subculture. The ideal
became real. Norman Mailer’s bizarre essay “The White Negro” and pulp fiction
like Warren Miller’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cool World</i>
(1959) about black gang life are must reading in order to comprehend how Cool
was a sensibility originally copped by burnt-out white “artists” off
heroin-numbed black hustlers (shades of Mencken’s original observation). The
flat affect and dead eyes of Cool were born right there, among a bunch of
losers aping junkies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The actor Jon Voight was recently on TV trying to
describe how the youth of his generation responded to Marlon Brando in “The
Wild One” (1953), and all he could say, gushing like a teenage girl, was “Y’know
he was so cool, y’know? Just so cool. And you wanted to be like that - to be cool.”
Brando himself, as Johnny in the film, tries to describe Cool to a square: “Now
if you gonna stay cool, you got to wail. You got to put somethin' down. You got
to make some jive. Don't you know what I'm talkin' about?” Thus another synonym
for Cool might be “inarticulate.” In fact Cool joins “like” and “y’know” in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">menage a trois</i> of modern incoherence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To declare something Cool, however, pretty much ends the
discussion. The power to confer Coolness upon something is the ultimate power;
once Cool is invoked, there is really nothing more to say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cool recrudesces constantly. Richard Barnes’ book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mods!</i> spots it in early 1960s London, a
sighting that fits Guy Debord’s critique of commodity fetishism and the
hegemony of appearances to a T:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The Mod way of life
consisted of total devotion to looking and being ‘Cool.’ Spending practically
all your money on clothes and all your after work hours in clubs and dance
halls. ...</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">...Mods had their own
style of walking. They swayed their shoulders and took short steps, with their
feet slightly turned out. It was more of a swagger, a walk of confidence. They’d
sometimes have their hands held together behind their backs under their coats
or plastic macs and these would sway as they bowled along. ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">...They were
incredibly vain, a bit snobbish and totally narcissistic. ... [A Mod]
remembers, ‘You’d have to look totally relaxed, but right. You’d have to pose,
so you sort of slouched, you put your leg against the wall. To look cool, you’d
put your hands in your Levi’s or your jacket pocket with your thumbs sticking
out.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The folk duo Simon and Garfunkel set “Richard Corey” to
music in the mid-1960s, but before that, Bob Dylan was specializing in the same
kind of cheap and easy, once-over-lightly character assassination, with a
built-in vocal jeer that matched perfectly. In song after Dylan song, “she” is
pathetic, “he” is clueless, and “you” (the unCool) are just plain pitiable.
Meanwhile, “Something is happening and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr.
Jones?” Bu <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we</i> do, Dylan’s initiates
could gloat. Of course they didn’t really, but the trick was to smirk knowingly
at the right moments. “Now little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously, he
brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously.” No moral outlook, nothing
at all unifies these random critiques - nothing but idle malice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Dylan’s sly, whining method was easily imitated and
proved quite addictive to the new generation of pop musicians. Even the
warm-hearted Beatles toyed with Cool in such songs as “Eleanor Rigby” and “She’s
Leaving Home.” Yet those songs were compassionate vignettes compared to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nyah-nyah-nyah</i> of the Dylan tradition.
Paul McCartney’s advice to Jude, “Don’t you know that it’s a fool who plays it
cool by making the world a little colder?,” will stand forever as the credo of
the Beatles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Irreverence is naturally corrosive. “Cast a cold eye on
life, on death,” and in time looks can kill. In this Current Era of ours,
literature, art, film, journalism, comedy, pop music and pop culture are all choking
in a poison gas attack of unearned disdain.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> But recent research by psychiatrist Ilan Dar-Nimrod, published in the <i>Journal of Individual Differences</i> (2012), found "that coolness has lost so much of its historical origins and meaning - the very heavy countercultural, somewhat individualistic pose." A thousand respondents to his survey on Cool tended to define it as being "nice to people, attractive, confident, and successful" - not to mention "friendly" and "trendy." Dar-Nimrod contrasted this with the "darker version" of Cool exemplified by the Nowhere Man, the Rebel Without a Cause, the Misfit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cool has continued making massive inroads into youth culture
with the Punk movement of the 1970s, up to the present day. One
memorable epithet for the aesthetic of Punk was “vacant stranger.” As one early
observer of the scene wrote (in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Street
Art: The Punk Poster in San Francisco 1977-1981</i>):</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Going to these gigs is
like gathering to inspect the latest output of damaged goods. ... The music
functions as a mutagen. It isn’t music - or rather, music is not the point. Nor
it is ritual. There is no tribe. Separation is being celebrated here: you bask
in splendid, mutually crafted solitude. ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">What happens at these
gigs? You learn the etiquette of overcrowding, how to dance with a pronounced
Brownian motion. The emotions your parents could afford to buy you have become
dysfunctional in a world like this one; what more useful skill to pick up than
numbness? Once you have that down you can begin to practice auto-behavior
modification. ... The pursuit of happiness has mutated, transvalued into the
pursuit of loneliness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As with Edgar Lee Masters’ mockery of the defenseless
dead, the rule of Cool depends very much upon dodging retaliation, being “judgment-proof.”
Cool’s favorite ruse is to be so subtle and deadpan that its victims are
scarcely aware they’re being attacked. Comedy, by definition passive-aggressive
(“Heh heh, can’t take a joke?,</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">”</span> “Hey, just <i>kidding</i>”), is the ideal vehicle for
such occult assaults.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Voted #1 of the “50 Greatest Shows of All Time” by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">TV Guide</i> in 2002, the late lamented “Seinfeld”
was not long ago the utmost depth and outer limit of Cool. Jerry’s underhanded
ridicule of everything, especially anything noble, heartfelt or sincere, was
not a “show about nothing” but a show about how ridiculously unCool <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> are for believing in anything or
expecting anything but baseness from others. Particularly loathsome was Jerry’s
nervous little rictus after each “hilarious” putdown, as if to say “I can’t
believe it, I’m getting away with murder here...”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Keith Haring thought the Coolest thing about people was
the little chalk outlines they left behind when they died. Somewhat later
anatomist/sculptor Gunther von Hagens discovered that the dead themselves -
flayed, preserved and sliced like summer sausage - were the Coolest of all
media. Another depth of Cool was reached with the Anna Nicole Smith show -
think of all those people who watched in the hope she’d melt down again on
camera. And when she actually dropped dead – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Coolissima</i>!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These depths have been exceeded many times in the
intervening years. Snark is everywhere. The epithet “fail” is combined with
every thing under the sun. What is the cult of “Grey Gardens” but a Cool
mirthless laugh at two lonely old dames? Aside from the plethora of reality
shows and vampire shows and celebrity-dishing shows and snarky faux-news shows,
there is also the phenomenon of “forensic” shows, rivaling one another to revel
in their ability to see human bodies as so much dead meat (“CSI,” “NCIS,” “Bones,”
“Grey’s Anatomy,” “Dexter,” “Law and Order,” etc.). Such displays immunize viewers
against empathy the same way violent video games inure players to bloody
murder. The face of everyday life is already blank and averted; the Lonely
Crowd has become the autistic crowd. Cool has chilled the heart of our culture
to the point where, to use one of Cool’s favorite phrases, it has “assumed room
temperature.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>John Berger and the deconstructionists and others have
made much of the Gaze: the social calculus of who may look at whom, in what way,
for how long, for what reason. Berger noted that in “bourgeois” oil painting,
objects - rare tulips, food, dogs, horses, women - are arrayed for the viewer’s
eye to possess and consume; they are objectified. The painted women gaze forth
in response to the gazer/prospective buyer, “betraying” the painted men next to
them. But still more objectifying and depersonalizing is the averted gaze of
Cool. Most news, fashion and portrait photographs now show the subject(s) with
eyes and face turned elsewhere. Because there is something so much more
interesting than you are, just outside the frame. ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The runway model’s blank puss rivals the “thousand-yard stare”
of the shell-shocked Marine for distance and removal and “gone”-ness. The
skeletal appearance (what Tom Wolfe called the “social x-ray”) of a Kate Moss
has rightly been termed the Auschwitz Look, but her comatose regard emits the
catatonia of Cool. It’s the same smug-ugly expression on the mugs of all those
hiphop thugs gyrating on MTV and BET and VH1. And more often than not the face
is entirely effaced by wrap-around shades.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet even Cool can be subjected to the Cool treatment: the
Coolest now spell and pronounce it “kewl.” Variants of Cool are “chill out” and
“Just chillax.” Ask America’s youngsters what they’re up to today, and if they
answer at all, they’ll mutter, “Just chillin’.” Since our chilled children are
set loose to spend what one author has called their “$100 billion allowance,”
marketers are being exhorted to create “ever-Cool” products that will magically
brand themselves upon kids’ icy little hearts. Today’s “neo-Punk” franchise is
so Cool it’s freezing. Although it’s tough to top the L.A. punk band Fear’s
1970s lyric “Let’s have a war! So you can go die!,” the new bands are still
grimly trying. The few that don’t try, that manage to slip in a bit of warmth,
are branded “emo,” and you’d swear the term was lifted from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Clockwork Orange</i> until you realize no
one’s read it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>(Actually the latest wrinkle on Cool is not “chill” but “sick.”
If something’s sick, it’s, like, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">soooo</i>
Cool.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Any Punk emporium in any shopping mall in America today
sells shirts, decals, posters, pins, tattoos and patches with messages like:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“I don’t mean to be
rude. Actually, yes I do.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“Love sucks.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“You suck and that’s
sad.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’m not antisocial. I
just don’t like you.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“You forgot to ask if
I care.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’m sorry. My fault.
I forgot you were an idiot.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“It’s funny till
someone gets hurt - then it’s hilarious.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“When I grow up I want
to be the exact opposite of you.” (Dylan said it first, in “Positively 4th
Street”: “Yes I wish that just one time/You could stand inside my shoes/You’d
know what a drag it is/To see you.”)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“Rejoice for we have
horrified and repulsed them.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“If I looked like you
I’d have to kick my own ass!”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">“Oh crap. You’re going
to try and cheer me up, aren’t you?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Most of these messages (add your own favorites here) are
preemptive strikes of the You-can’t-fire-me-I-quit type, but the last one gives
the game away a bit. A lot of those Cool kidz would <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">like</i> to be cheered up - they just don’t think it’s possible any
more, or that anyone would care to, and they’re steeling themselves to endure that
eventuality. An understandable precaution. Cool is a “self-esteem” so armored
that nothing can hurt or even touch you any more. It’s what the world would be
like if high school never ended and no one ever grew up, a world run by
soulless adolescents where fewer and fewer adults emerge to light the way out
of the endless night of jive and screwups.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What Cooler world could there be, then, than one full of
zombies, vampires, robots or mummies? The mounting craze for these ultra-Cool
customers - “undead” or “living dead” - extends the Cool aesthetic about as far
as it can go. There are now actually rival camps of followers: Some get off
only on vampires, some are unmoved by anything but zombies. And there are “slow”
and “fast” zombies to choose between. Slow ones are the traditional sort that
starred in George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead.” The fast ones are more
recent, and are typically produced by toxic or nuclear means (“28 Days Later,” “I
Am Legend,” etc.). Girls prefer vampires, boys prefer zombies, and nerds prefer
robots. The novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pride, Prejudice and
Zombies</i> makes the craze retroactive to the era of Jane Austen, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">History Is Dead: A Zombie Anthology</i> (“a
vicious timeline chronicling the rise of the undead”) is even more ambitious.
It won’t be long before the entire past has been cannibalized by Cool.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Don’t laugh. Barack Hussein Obama was elected almost
solely on the basis of what a “cool customer,” in Charles Krauthammer’s words,
he was perceived to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>JFK was also
perceived as upping America’s Cool quotient, although he seems a titan of
statecraft compared with the current regime. Cool, and therefore also a Cool
candidacy, need have nothing to do with truthfulness, tough decision-making,
fairness, effectiveness, practicality, reason, logic or any of that stuff, and
everything to do with style, perception and vicarious pseudo-membership in the
In Crowd.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cool tactics, derived chiefly from the 1971 handbook <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rules for Radicals</i> by “community
organizer” Saul Alinsky, propelled Barack Obama to power. In addition to the
famous “Pick the target, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">freeze</i> it,
personalize it, and polarize it” [emphasis added], Alinsky’s manual for
overturning society features Rule #5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It
is almost impossible to counter-attack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the
opposition, who then react to your advantage.” Alinsky and his acolytes
understand the unnerving psychology of Cool ridicule, its maddeningly “untouchable”
underhandedness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Rule #10 notes that “All effective action requires the
passport of morality. ... You do what you can with what you have and clothe it
with moral arguments ... Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of
action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.”
Simulating the “warm” attributes of faith, liberality, generosity, idealism,
compassion, altruism and so forth, the Cool candidate can always appear morally
superior to anything; he doesn’t have to worry about the real-world
consequences of his ideas or actions; he is free to wag his finger and purse
his lips at the least flaw in his opponent without fear of hypocrisy or
self-contradiction. Traditional types just don’t get this; they’re playing by
the old pre-Cool rules. They still think their opponent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cares</i> about something. Caring is the Achilles heel of the unCool.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Victor Davis Hanson in his column “The Power of Cool” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National Review Online</i>, 5/23/12) nails
this political usage right on the head:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">We simply don’t mind
that Google and Amazon rake in billions, but we despise Exxon and Archer
Daniels Midland for doing the same. It is not that we need social networking
and Internet searches more than food and fuel, but rather that we have the
impression that cool zillionaires in flipflops are good while uncool ones in
wingtips are quite bad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ridicule is a double-edged sword, though. There is only
one thing to which ever-ridiculing Cool is vulnerable, and that’s ridicule
itself. This is why it is so important to Obama’s aggressively humorless
handlers that he (and his wife) never be seen in even the most slightly
ridiculous light. Once laughter other than the type permitted (proactive,
self-deprecatory, controlled, silkily arrogant) bubbles forth, there’s no
telling where it will lead, how loud it will get, what might become visible.
The worst enemy of the Big Lie is the Big Laugh.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They who live by Cool, die by Cool. Since one of the
synonyms of Cool is “fickle,” it comes as little surprise to read in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York Times</i>, a mere nine months
after Obama’s election, the following:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Last week, if you
wanted to use the latest slang to tell a friend he was cool, you could have
called him ‘Obama,’ as in: ‘Dude, you’re rocking the new Pre phone? You are so
Obama.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">This week? Best not to
risk it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The sudden shift in
meaning has nothing to do with the fortunes of the president [really?],
regardless of what the health care debate may do to his cool factor. The fault
rests entirely with what has happened to the life span of slang, which seems to
shorten with every click of the mouse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">... [Jonathon] Green
said that, when he was a hippie in England in the 1960s, ‘the language that we
were using was in fact the language of 1930s black America, though very few of
us were aware of this.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Back then, ‘it took
20, 30 years to cross the Atlantic,’ he said. ‘The difference now is it takes
20 to 30 hours.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street “veteran” Rami Shamir lines
up outside Apple’s Fifth Avenue store, not to buy the new iPhone, but to
protest: “Apple sells cool,” charges Mr. Shamir, “but there is nothing cool
about how Apple treats its workers overseas.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet Cool glides on, unchanging as Dorian Gray, impervious
to shifting fashions, a living contradiction of the “accepted wisdom among
linguists that once a word actually shows up in a slang dictionary [of which
there are now dozens], it effectively ceases to be slang,” as the above <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Times</i> article notes. Perhaps this is
because its very name states so clearly what it means. In the end, Cool is a
strain of the Cult of Death – Thanatos - that reappears throughout human social
history. But that is a topic beyond my focus here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">CAVEATS</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After such an indictment of our world’s infantile idolatry
of Cool, it comes as a shock to realize there <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> a state of being beyond the frozen pose of Cool that might be
called, for lack of a better word, True Cool. But of course there is no lack of
a better word, because this venerated state of being long predates the cult of Cool.
Integrity, perhaps? <i>Thumos</i>? Which the Greeks defined as "anger" or "spirit," and Plato symbolized as "the lion among men" who </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">"confronts misfortune in all cases with steadfast endurance" and "</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">holds fast to the orders of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear, in spite of pleasure and pain"?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Valor? Virtue? Mettle? Guts? Heart? Character? What the Scots call
“feck” or Northern Brits call “gorm”?<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We see an extended treatment
of this state of being in Tom Wolfe's study of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Right Stuff</i>. Astronaut Cool is an “ineffable quality” that
Wolfe nonetheless tries to “eff”:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">As to just what this
ineffable quality was . . . well, it obviously involved bravery. But it was not
bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life. The idea seemed
to be that any fool could do that, if that was all that was required, just as
any fool could throw away his life in the process. No, the idea here (in the
all-enclosing fraternity) seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go
up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have
the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the
last yawning moment — and then to go up again the next day, and the next day,
and every next day, even if the series should prove infinite — and, ultimately,
in its best expression, do so in a cause that means something to thousands, to
a people, a nation, to humanity, to God. Nor was there a test to show whether
or not a pilot had this righteous quality. There was, instead, a seemingly
infinite series of tests. A career in flying was like climbing one of those
ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges,
a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep; and the idea was to prove
at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were on of the elected and
anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move higher and higher and even
— ultimately, God willing, one day — that you might be able to join that
special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to
men's eyes, the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself.</span></div>
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<br />
As one fan of the book put it, "[Wolfe] has extracted this mysterious quality - guts, machismo, the it factor, coolness - from certain historical personages and events, and has portrayed it simply and beautifully as if he were a poet sociologist from another planet."<br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This quality also forms the beating heart of the Western
genre: Cowboy Cool, the code of the West. It appears in the first Westerns, such
as Owen Wister’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Virginian </i>(1903):</span><br />
<br />
"Your bet, you son-of-a--."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The Virginian's pistol
came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice
as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a
very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each
word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">‘When you call me
that, <i>smile</i>!’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">And he looked at
Trampas across the table. Yes, the voice was gentle. But in my ears it seemed
as if somewhere the bell of death was ringing; and silence, like a stroke, fell
on the large room.</span></div>
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<br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The greatest of all Western novelists, Zane Grey, created
a character in one of his earliest books who’s the granddaddy of all cowboy
heroes – the “gun-man” Lassiter:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Easy--easy--I ain't
interferin' yet,’ replied the rider. The tone of his voice had undergone a
change. A different man had spoken. Where, in addressing Jane, he had been mild
and gentle, now, with his first speech to Tull, he was dry, cool, biting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">‘I've jest stumbled
onto a queer deal. Seven Mormons all packin' guns, an' a Gentile tied with a
rope, an' a woman who swears by his honesty! Queer, ain't that?’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Queer or not, it's
none of your business,’ retorted Tull.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Where I was raised a
woman's word was law. I ain't quite outgrowed that yet.’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>(from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Riders of the Purple Sage</i>, 1912)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">We also sense this
higher concept of Cool in Paul McCartney's recent formulation: "Be cool
and you’ll be all right. That’s rock & roll religion” (<i>Rolling Stone</i>,
3/1/12). McCartney is one rock star who has never <span style="font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">brought</span><b> </b>shame
upon himself, and whose style is not to act out Cool decadence but to endlessly
create (mostly) good music, “silly love songs” included.<br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The single greatest cause for the veneration of Cool? Its
scarcity. The more people are obsessed with something, the less of it there must be.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">CONCLUSION</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>How can young kids be turning into jaded connoisseurs of
cynical boredom? It’s certainly not due to traumas like plague, famine, locust
horde, grinding poverty or civil war. Cynical boredom has been force-fed them
by mass culture’s state-of-the-art operant conditioning. This is r<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">essentiment</i>’s greatest triumph: to have
turned the Outsider into the arbiter of our civilization’s very future.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But the cultural elite that sold us Cool will only savor
a Pyrrhic victory, having groomed subjects who will neither overthrow nor
uphold their own society, who would not lift a finger to save the world as they
have been conditioned to despise it. Mainstream nihilism is not a philosophy
that breeds warriors for the “cause” of corporate globalism (or is it global
corporatism?). The nightmare of Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man has come true:
The kids have discovered (with a little help from MTV) that “Nothing matters.”
They can’t just be bidden to rise up against the enemy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">du jour</i>. That would require far too much hot-blooded ardor.
Patriotism, like any other emotional certainty, is way unCool. For this reason,
reinstatement of the military draft - this time for both or rather all “genders”
- must be part of the elite’s game plan.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Perhaps there is still hope, the dawning of a new
idealism among our youth as Western Civ faces its greatest challenge yet.
Perhaps they can shake off the miasma of Cool long enough to see what they
stand to lose if they can’t defend the traditions they hold in such bored
contempt. Perhaps “emo” is even now quickening in their hearts, primed to start
functioning like a proper countertendency. Then again, perhaps not. But isn’t
it pretty to think so?</span></div>
Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-92083216030527696962012-08-14T19:56:00.000-07:002012-08-15T15:08:02.784-07:00Women Beat Men at Olympics, 58 to 46!<style>@font-face {
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The media have been gushing all week; as
one outlet put it, “This year [is the] 40th anniversary of Title IX, the
barrier-breaking law that opened doors in sports for women in the United
States. For the first time this year, women outnumbered men on the U.S. Olympic
team, … 273 to 261.” Women also brought back 58 of the 104 medals won by the
U.S.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Title IX didn’t just open doors for
women, it closed doors for men. The law forced schools that did not field the
exact same number of teams for women as they did for men to cut men’s teams.
Since women are not as interested in competitive sports as men are, this has
meant a lot of young men deprived of the opportunity to compete in their sport
of choice. Perhaps this is showing up in the stats for American male Olympians:
a smaller pool resulitng in fewer medals?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In some cases men have gone to colleges
on sports scholarships only to find their sport canceled because not enough
women could be found to join the requisite number of women’s teams. At the same
time, for instance, women who have never held an oar before are being recruited to crew teams
at many schools.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Returning to the Olympics, analysts are
also crowing that U.S. women alone brought home more gold medals (29) than all but
two entire <i>nations</i>. The
true meaning of this staggering statistic needs to be seen clearly: The United
States is the best place on earth to be a woman. Period.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In keeping with the general
divisiveness of the Obama years, there has been a tone of vengefulness to some
of the Olympic coverage, as if women went head to head with men and
dominated. Both sexes are now eligible to compete in all sports (except for
softball, synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics, which are women-only). But there are actually only two Olympic sports
where men and women compete directly against one another: equestrian events and
one sailing event. So American women proved themselves superior to other <i>women</i> the world over – again, because
they hail from the best-place-ever on the planet to be born female.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 2012 the advanced countries have
even been able to pressure backwaters like Qatar, Brunei and Saudi Arabia to
field at least one woman for the first time. Considering that European men
invented almost all the sports played at the Olympics and, furthermore, created
the Olympic Games themselves, their gradual, generous inclusion of other nationalities
and now the “fairer sex” should be commended, not derided and resented. But of
course it won’t be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One American female Olympian even had
the gracelessness to sneer, “I remember [when growing up] boys would be saying,
‘She can’t be out here playing.’ But I have a gold medal around my neck. And
those guys don’t.” Gee, that's great. Makes you wonder if some of those guys didn’t get to have an
athletic career because of Title IX darlings like her. And of course it’s
always healthy for a society to stir up envy and bad blood between its men and
women. ...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I used to play softball in a
community league in the Bay Area, the Nanny State rule was that if your team
didn’t have any female players, you could win by a blowout and still have to
forfeit the game. When I realized the guys on the team wanted me on it only to
avoid forfeiting, I quit. Sorry, guys – can’t win for losing.</div>
Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-35698864943975561302012-06-16T09:24:00.002-07:002014-02-01T07:57:11.037-08:00A Call to the ColorsNot long ago, Americans started being told to call
conservative/Republican states “red” and liberal/Democratic states “blue.” This
reversal of time-honored political colors, according to several sources, was casually
introduced by journalist Tim Russert during the 2000 presidential election, and
by 2004 had gone viral and become hegemonic.
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Although Russert is no longer with us, his color blindness
appears to have gotten dyed in the wool.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For perspective, try to picture the Reds of Manchester
United or the Cincinnati Reds or the Boston Redsox suddenly switching their
team colors to blue and forcing it down fans’ throats. Or Italy’s Azzurri
football club going red.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Never happen. Color is not a neutral attribute. It is radical,
it goes to the root.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The identification of Red with socialist revolution has very
deep historical and emotional roots: the mythic “blood-brotherhood” of the
downtrodden People, the blood of martyred working-class heroes, the willingness
to fight to the death for the proletariat. It represents the <i>heart</i> and its sorrows and rages.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Similarly, the identification of Blue with tradition, moderation,
conservatism, Reason, religion, transcendence, asceticism, aristocracy (“bluebloods”),
idealism, spirituality, purity and the <i>cerebral</i>
is deep-rooted and near universal. Wikipedia notes, "<span class="st">The Thin Blue Line is a colloquial term for
police forces. The blue refers to <i>the typical blue of the police
uniform</i>, and refers to the police forces in general [emphasis added]." </span>Related terms are “blue laws,” which forbid certain
behaviors on the Sabbath; “bluenose,” the advocate of a rigid moral code; and “blue
stocking,” an overly intellectual female. Blue is the Virgin Mary’s color. Mess
with that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Among colors, blue and red are polar opposites. Seeing red
is the opposite of feeling blue. Redlining, raising red flags – blue is simply
not alarming; blue is soothing. Red = danger because it means something is
bleeding or on fire; and Nature uses red coloration to warn of toxins in many
species (caterpillars, snakes, frogs, efts, insects, etc.).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Blood and fire are red. The heavens and the oceans are blue.
Q.E.D.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s shocking that leftists are not more bothered by the
loss of their scarlet badge of honor, as they more than anyone are left bereft by
this whole blunder. Leftwing demonstrations and marches are seas of
heart-throbbing, histrionic red. As early as the 1790s red was the color of the Jacobins in the French Revolution.
Ditto for the revolutions of 1848. The Paris Commune hoisted red banners until it
was drowned in blood.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rebellion red is richer and far more ancient than the 18th or 19th centuries, however. As D.H. Lawrence wrote in <i>Apocalypse</i>
(1931), his ecstatic but politically garbled damnation of the Book of
Revelation:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
The human heart needs, needs, needs
splendour, gorgeousness, pride, assumption, glory, and lordship. …</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
The red dragon [of the Book of Revelation] is
the kakodaimon, the dragon in his evil or inimical aspect. In the old lore, red
is the colour of man’s splendour, but the color of evil in the cosmic creatures
or the gods. … The red dragon is the great “potency” of the cosmos. …</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
… The oldest of old dragons was a
marvellous red, glowing golden and blood-red. He was bright, bright, bright
red, like the most dazzling vermilion. This, this vivid gold-red was the first
colour of the first dragon, far, far back under the very dawn of history. … Ah
then the heroes and the hero-kings glowed in the face red as poppies that the
sun shines through. It was the colour of glory: it was the colour of the wild
bright blood, which was life itself. …</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
And today, in the day of the
dirty-white dragon of the Logos and the Steel Age, the socialists have taken up
the oldest of life-colours, and the whole world trembles at a suggestion of
vermilion. “Red for danger,” the children say. … But every heroic epoch turns
instinctively to the red dragon.</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
The sacred mysteries of the Rosicrucians record the following with regard to the extreme antiquity of red symbolism:<br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Phrygian Cap is a most recondite antiquarian form; the symbol comes from the highest antiquity. It is displayed on the head of the figure sacrificing in the celebrated sculpture, called the 'Mithraic Sacrifice' (or the Mythical Sacrifice), in the British Museum. This loose cap, with the point protruded, gives the original form from which all helmets or defensive headpieces, whether Greek or Barbarian, deduce. As a Phrygian Cap, or Symbolizing Cap, it is always sanguine in its colour. It then stands as the 'Cap of Liberty', a revolutionary form; also, in another way, it is even a civic or incorporated badge. It is always masculine in its meaning. It marks the 'needle' of the obelisk, the crown or tip of the phallus, whether 'human' or representative. It has its origin in the rite of circumcision--unaccountable as are both the symbol and the rite.<br /><br />The real meaning of the <i>bonnet rouge</i>, or 'cap of liberty', has been involved from time immemorial in deep obscurity, notwithstanding that it has always been regarded as a most important hieroglyph or figure. It signifies the supernatural simultaneous 'sacrifice' and 'triumph'. </span></blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AbZWX3VPPec/Uu0Vz0PmyXI/AAAAAAAAAEc/ERTnDl2RkKw/s1600/Phrygian-Cap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AbZWX3VPPec/Uu0Vz0PmyXI/AAAAAAAAAEc/ERTnDl2RkKw/s1600/Phrygian-Cap.jpg" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thus Russert’s discoloration is no mere whim, but actually
distorts, rewrites and annihilates history and myth from any and every dialectical standpoint. At
the very least it abruptly severs American political history from that of the
rest of the world. To comprehend what this switch logically compels, consider
the following:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Red Scare and the Red Menace must become the Blue Scare
and the Blue Menace. Every mention of “reds” in American politics of both right
and left must be scrubbed and replaced by “blues.” You can’t even call
fellow-travelers “pinkos” any more. “Red-baiting” turns to “blue-baiting.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Red diaper babies”
must be thrown out with the bathwater.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Innumerable works of history like David J. Mitchell’s <i>1919: Red Mirage</i> and Eugene Lyons’ <i>The
Red Decade </i>must be retitled.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Russia, the Red Guards and the Red Terror and the Red
Army and the Bolshevik slogan “<i>Klinom
krasnim bey byelikh!”</i> (Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge!) all go down the
Memory Hole. The <i>Rote Armee Fraktion</i>
(Red Army Faction) and <i>Brigate Rosse</i> (Red
Brigades) of the European New Left must join them there. Multitudes of
references to Red Oktober must be purged, and Red Square may no longer bleed in
the heart of Moscow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cl0FCxVvJ-4/T9yxDMv7W7I/AAAAAAAAACw/F0v7L8bqrPA/s1600/Klinom+krasnim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cl0FCxVvJ-4/T9yxDMv7W7I/AAAAAAAAACw/F0v7L8bqrPA/s320/Klinom+krasnim.jpg" height="249" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The symbol of every communist party in the world from China to Catalunya, the red star, must revert to moody blue. Can you even imagine
the hammer and sickle “rampant on a field azure”? The very notion is D.O.A.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mao’s Little Red Book becomes the Little Blue Book of
transvalued values.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The anthem and the historic newspaper each known as <i>Die Rote Fahne</i> (The Red Flag) must
become <i>Die Blaue Fahne</i>, to the dismay
of the ghosts of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Irishman Jim Connell’s anthem “The Red Flag,” written in
1889, has been sung for a century by British leftists of all tints (to the
tune of “O Tannenbaum”):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
The people's flag is
deepest red, <br />
It shrouded oft our martyred dead, <br />
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold, <br />
Their heartsblood dyed its every fold. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<u><i>Chorus</i></u>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
Then raise the
scarlet standard high. <br />
Within its shade we'll live and die.<br />
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, <br />
We'll keep the red flag flying here. <br />
<br />
Look round, the Frenchman loves its blaze, <br />
The sturdy German chants its praise, <br />
In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sung,<br />
Chicago swells the surging throng. …</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But now it must be rewritten: “The people’s flag is deepest <i>blue,</i>/It shrouded oft our martyred <i>few</i>”... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(The Chicago reference above is to the notorious
Haymarket Riot of 1886, where a red flag waved over the assembled strikers demanding
an 8-hour day.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
The <i>bandiera rossa</i>
of Italian Communism –<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Avanti o popolo! Alla riscossa!</i><br />
<i>Bandiera rossa! Bandiera rossa!</i><br />
<i>... Bandiera rossa la trionferà,</i><br />
<i>Evviva il comunismo e la libertà!</i></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
must become <i>bandiera
azzurra</i>, which does not rhyme with <i>riscossa</i>
(revolt).</div>
<br />
The pain of losing their redness in song is indeed greater for the left: for instance, the Spanish Civil War’s ballad of the Thaelmann Brigade – o<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px;">r “</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px;"><i>Paris ma rose</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px;">”
with lyrics by Boris Vian –</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<i>Où
est passée Paris la rouge?<br />
La Commune des sans-souliers?<br />
…<br />
Est-elle fermée, la longue douleur<br />
Du temps où les gars avaient si grand cœur<br />
Qu'on n'voyait que lui aux trous des chemises?</i></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Where has Red Paris gone?<br />
The Commune of the <i>Sans-souliers</i> [barefoot]?<br />
... Is it over, then, the long grief<br />
Of that time when the youths had such great heart<br />
That you saw only that through the holes in their shirts?</blockquote>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i>
<i>Socorro Rojo
Internacional</i> (International Red Aid) saved many a revolutionary's life in 1930s Spain,
and would not wish to be forgotten for it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-azLCel5ru3I/T9yxMDF12OI/AAAAAAAAAC4/_tuPtTYBrjs/s1600/socorrorojo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-azLCel5ru3I/T9yxMDF12OI/AAAAAAAAAC4/_tuPtTYBrjs/s1600/socorrorojo.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The French tricolor – <i>bleu,
blanc et rouge</i> standing for <i>Libert</i><i>é, Egalit</i><i>é, Fraternit</i><i>é </i>– will have to be redone
as <i>bleu, blanc et bleu</i>. Indeed, all
political flags must be thrown out and redesigned, as in most of them the red
is intended to symbolize “the People.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Danny the Red of Paris 1968 fame – and all those others
called “the Red” for their unswerving allegiance to socialism – must now be
called “the Blue.” Only the Blue Meanies of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”
need not change color.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last and least, that awful movie “Reds” must be retitled
“Blues.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course we won’t make these changes. We’ll just let America
be cut loose from history, adrift in petty exceptionalism and lazy amnesia. It
sure makes you wonder if the red/blue inversion is a cynical and conscious ploy
to weaken our historical sense of ourselves as a people. Texas is a “red”
state? … <i>Please</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Popolo americano</i>,
we need to show our true colors. The situation is ludicrous. One ignoramus cannot
be allowed to up-end centuries of symbolic thought. If this dumb switch is
allowed to stand, what’s next - changing the colors of Christmas (red and
green, the colors of life) to blue and silver? Oh wait, that’s already being
tried.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s time both sides took their true colors back. It needs to begin
with websites (including redstate.com) and blogs and commentators and
organizations just announcing they are going back to the rational color key,
and then consistently doing so. Others can either follow suit or continue along
the path to irrelevance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we can’t even call something by its rightful color, how on
earth are we going to withstand any of the other wondrous transformations the elites
have in store for us?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-3504797177646599482012-02-20T09:04:00.003-08:002012-02-29T14:15:43.579-08:00Chaos: Made to OrderWe hear constant warnings that Chaos is coming. Often this Chaos is portrayed as <span style="font-weight: bold;">planned</span>: paradoxically preordained disorder. <span style="font-style: italic;">Cui bono</span>?<br /><br />Some say the instigator and beneficiary will be the state, which needs an excuse to crack down and impose martial law, censorship, arms confiscation, internment camps, rationing and the like.<br /><br />Some say it's the enemies of the West, who are trying to topple our advanced industrial society by "asymmetrical" means such as stock market and currency manipulation, biological warfare (starting with agricultural pests like honeybee mites and ranging up to weaponized plague), attacks on our energy sources, doomsday computer viruses, hacking and the like.<br /><br />Others blame the planet's infestation by humans for impending man-made Chaos: overpopulation, ocean pollution, global warming, rogue nukes, famine caused by over-reliance on GM (genetically modified) foods, collapse of the potable water supply, runaway nanotechnology, even CERN's quest for the Higgs boson. It is feared that the Large Hadron Collider's creation of this "God particle" will trigger an instant stripping of mass from matter that will simply end the Universe. The Higgs boson is believed to <span style="font-style: italic;">confer mass</span> - a minor operation that modern physics is unable to explain otherwise - so physicists think producing the particle artificially will explain it. What <span style="font-style: italic;">confers mass</span> to the Higgs boson will then need to be explained.<br /><br />And let's not forget an old favorite: some believe a "robot apocalypse" to be inevitable, as we outsource more and more of our brainpower to soulless machines like HAL, Master Control, Colossus, VIKI, and Skynet that will <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> see the world the way humans do.<br /><br />Still others feel the Chaos will not be man-made but natural (most of the following events are considered "overdue," by the way): major solar flares/storms, a killer flu pandemic, earthquake/volcano ensembles, reversal of earth's magnetic field, earth's passage through the asteroid belt or some other change in our galactic location. Dates like Y2K and 2012 bring out the amateur numerologist in many.<br /><br />(The zombie apocalypse, my sentimental favorite, doesn't quite fit into any of these categories. It could be man-made or natural, homegrown or alien. I suppose it would fit in best alongside a War of the Worlds extraterrestrial-invasion scenario.)<br /><br />The National Geographic series "Doomsday Preppers" profiles several families and individuals hoping to survive Chaos by storing tons of food, water, guns and ammo, emergency fuel and other supplies. Some propose to "bug out" if necessary, leaping into their fully loaded trucks or vans and hightailing it to a remote backup retreat. Others think they can "bug in" and ride out Chaos, turning their farms, homes and even apartments into forts to keep the deranged world at bay.<br /><br />No two of those profiled by Nat Geo share the same apocalypse. One swears by eruption of the Yellowstone mega-caldera, one by "hyperinflation," another by massive earthquakes along the New Madrid fault, still another by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) detonated at satellite height, about 300 miles up. All agree they are "hoping for the best and preparing for the worst."<br /><br />Each of these scenarios is officially considered plausible yet highly unlikely. But whereas one duck can't nibble you to death, a whole flock nibbling simultaneously can. The sheer number of infinitesimally probable apocalypses may add up to a rather nasty forecast.<br /><br />It seems to me that neither bugging out nor bugging in will work in the end. It's smart to have skills, know how to make and fix stuff, lay in some supplies for when the power goes out or the weather makes it tough to get around. But after even one month of genuine Chaos - that is, of the breakdown of transportation, the power grid, communications and civil society in general due to some cascade of catastrophic events - what chance does an isolated family or even group of families have of remaining immune?<br /><br />For one thing, other people will <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> leave you alone, and outnumber you vastly. They'll just keep coming. You have made yourself a target. For another, the government is not going to let a few hard-working, provident ants survive while the improvident mass of grasshoppers starve. All resources will be forcibly socialized, if only to make people feel like the state is "doing something." Even steel shipping containers like the ones some survivalists have begun living in won't stand up to tanks.<br /><br />(A very mild example of what would really happen is found in Laura Ingalls Wilder's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Long Winter</span>, sixth in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Little House on the Prairie</span> series. The Ingalls family is nearing starvation in the record cold and snow of 1880 when Pa takes a milk pail and makes his way to the home of a neighbor he knows to be hiding seed wheat inside his walls for the spring planting. The neighbor insists he's got no more grain left, so Pa simply pulls a plug out of the wall and lets his pail fill with wheat seeds. What happens next is redolent of a civilization that unfortunately has just about passed away.)<br /><br />After <span style="font-style: italic;">three</span> months of Chaos - forget about it. Some world-historic transformation of human society will be upon us, and all will be engulfed by it. The idea of freeze-drying your old life and hiding out in some hoard-choked hole will prove to have been a myopic delusion.<br /><br />Listen to how ludicrous this news item sounds (from trib.com, 2/24/12):<br /><br /><p></p><blockquote style="font-family: times new roman;"><p>CHEYENNE — State representatives on Friday advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States.</p> <p>House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.</p> <p>The task force would look at the feasibility of Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency, if needed. And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier.</p></blockquote><p></p><br />An <span style="font-style: italic;">aircraft carrier</span>?<br /><br />If Chaos is really coming, the best investment we can all make is in each other. Family, friends, neighbors, communities, local businesses and services - these need to be "stockpiled" as much as MRE's and matches. As, or rather <span style="font-style: italic;">if</span>, things continue to slide in a Chaotic direction, people will find themselves more and more having to reach out to others. And in doing so they will (re)discover the secret of recovering order from Chaos.<br /><br />This process has already begun, in fact.<br /><br />Other people may be Hell, but they're all we've got.Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-37214408752751212972012-02-04T11:20:00.000-08:002012-02-04T11:22:27.083-08:00Zombie Jamboree<span style="font-size: 12pt;font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;color:black;" ><div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">4 2 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE FEBRUARY 2 0 1 2<br /><br /></span></div></span> <span style="font-size: 12pt;font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;color:black;" ><div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Culture</span><span style="color: rgb(119, 121, 123);"></span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 20pt;">Unraveling the Undead</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">Our obsession with zombies, from the Congo to Hollywood</span><span style="color: rgb(119, 121, 123); font-size: 14pt;"></span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: 'Minion-SemiboldItalic','serif'; font-size: 10.5pt;">by </span></i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">MARIAN KESTER COOMBS</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> </span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> L</span><span style="font-family: 'MinionPro-Regular','serif'; color: black;">ike humans, zombies came out of Africa.</span><span style="font-family: 'MinionPro-Regular','serif'; color: rgb(119, 121, 123);"></span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">There they led rich lives being worshipped as</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Congolese snake gods (<i>nzambi</i>). The ability</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">of certain snakes to use poison to paralyze</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">their prey was ritualistically imitated by tribal priests,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">who then proclaimed themselves able to resurrect the</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">dead as well. In such vodoun or Obeah cults, the term</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><i><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">nzambi </span></i><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">migrated in meaning to “spirits of the dead.”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>Transported to the Americas, vodoun took root in</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Caribbean slave culture, mating with indigenous religions</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">to spawn zombies, zumbies, jumbies, and duppies</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">and spreading northward to the continent. By the</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">17th century vodoun was strong enough to trigger</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the Salem witch hysteria of 1692. Tituba, a Carib Indian</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">slave bought by Samuel Parris in Barbados and</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">brought to Salem, filled her young mistresses’ heads</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">with vodoun notions like invocation of the devil,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">possession, trances, animal familiars, and the sticking</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">of pins into “poppetts” (dolls) made to resemble</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">enemies. The girls’ psyches broke down, alternating</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">between hysterics and catatonia. Tituba was among</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the first arrested and was the first to confess, in lurid</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">detail—yet she survived while 24 others did not.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>In this case the ancient European belief in witches,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">lingering just below the surface of 17th-century Protestantism,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">reacted violently when brought into contact</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">with the live coal of African sympathetic magic.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Although Arthur Miller would have us believe (in</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">“The Crucible”) that the fault lay entirely with the uptight,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">theocratic “parochial snobbery” of the Massachusetts</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Bay colonists—frustrated folk keen to punish</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">and avenge—in Salem, at least, culture shock played</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">a major role.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>Richard Hughes’s novel <i>A High Wind in Jamaica</i></span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">(1929), set in the 19th century, opens with a British</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">colonial family so spooked by vodoun influence that</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the mother insists the children be shipped back to</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">England for their souls’ salvation. “Duppies cannot</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">be mistaken for living people,” she discovers that her</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">children have been instructed, “because their heads</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">are turned backwards on their shoulders, and they</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">carry a chain: moreover one must never call them</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">duppies to their faces, as it gives them power.”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>The popular cult of the zombie began shambling</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">forth in the 1920s, when Jazz Age hipsters turned their</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">fevered attentions to the West Indies. These slumming</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">lords and ladies thrilled to scenes of forbidden Obeah</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">rituals and inspired Hollywood to get into the act. In</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">1932 the first “voodoo” film, shot in 11 days on a budget</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">of $50,000, was titled “White Zombie”—once the</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">zombification of white people occurs, of course, attention</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">must be paid! Bela Lugosi plays a ghoulish character</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">who commands an army of the living dead forced to</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">“work in the sugar mills and the fields at night.”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>The Zombie cocktail debuted in 1934 at Don the</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Beachcomber’s, an L.A. watering spot, after a customer</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">reported that he “felt like a zombie” after swilling Don’s</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">mix of dark, golden, and white rum, cherry brandy,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">orange or papaya or pineapple juice, lemon juice, and</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">grenadine on the rocks. <i>Esquire </i>called the Zombie the</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">“mother of all freak drinks,” and so it remains, listed on</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">menus with the campy caution “Limit Two.”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>In 1956 my parents vacationed in Jamaica and</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">brought back maracas and a delightful 78: “Back to</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">back, belly to belly/ I don’t care a damn, I done dead</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">a’ready/ Back to back, belly to belly/ It’s a jumbie jamboree</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">…” The artist listed was The Charmer, backed</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">by Johnny McCleverty and the Calypso Boys. “The</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">[Mighty] Charmer” was the stage name of Louis Farrakhan,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><i><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">ne </span></i><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Louis Eugene Walcott, whose mother had emigrated</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">from St. Kitts to New York City. The song was</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">first performed in 1953 by Lord Intruder; its “jumbies”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">danced in a Trinidad cemetery, but The Charmer’s 1954</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">version moved the action to Woodlawn Cemetery in</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Brooklyn. The Kingston Trio and Harry Belafonte were</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">among those to cover the tune.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>Meanwhile zombies continued their advance as cultural</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">icon primarily onscreen. No count can be made</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">of these B- and C- and Z-rated movies—“Zombieland,”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">“Kung Fu Zombie,” “Zombie High,” “Zombie Strippers,”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">“Zombie Honeymoon,” “Zombie Campout,”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">“Zombie Beach Party,” “I, Zombie,” “I Was a Teenage</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Zombie,” “I Was a Zombie for the FBI,” “Zombie Holocaust,”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">“Zombie Women of Satan,” “Space Zombie</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Bingo,” “Redneck Zombies,” “Fast Zombies with Guns,”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">“Motocross Zombies from Hell,” “Hot Wax Zombies</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">on Wheels”—just a splattering of those with the z-word</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">in the title, which excludes the George Romero, “Evil</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Dead,” and “Resident Evil” film franchises, not to mention</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">AMC’s hit TV series based on Robert Kirkman’s</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">graphic novel <i>The Walking Dead</i>. There is even a genre</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">of Nazi-zombie films such as “Zombie Lake,” “Oasis of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the Zombies,” and “Dead Snow.”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>From the ’30s and ’40s we have “King of the Zombies,”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">“Revolt of the Zombies,” and “I Walked with a</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Zombie,” all now considered classics by whoever deems</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">zombie movies to be classics. But “Valley of the Zombies”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">in 1946 may have introduced an innovation: zombie</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">bloodlust. “Will science triumph against the evil</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">thirst of the undead?” shrilled the promo.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>The original image of the zombie was a biddable,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">entranced robotic worker, raised from the grave to labor</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">without complaint or compensation. Like its more</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">murderous brethren the Mummy, or the Somnambulist</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">from “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” this horror tapped</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">into two of humanity’s deep and historically justified</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">fears, of being enslaved and of premature burial. The</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">image of zombies as flesh-eating ghouls—the original</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Arabian <i>ghul </i>partook only of the dead—had yet to be</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">established. But somewhere along the evolutionary line</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">there appeared a hybrid creature, both cannibal and</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">undead, bastard offspring of a duppy and a vampire,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">with an inborn taste not just blood but human flesh.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>(As another forebear, <i>Frankenstein </i>must receive honorable</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">mention for its versatile monster, at once Golem,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">botched abortion, problem child, sin against the Creator,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">science project run amok, and renegade zombie.)</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>If there is anything people fear more than death and</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the dead, it is being eaten, especially eaten alive. Eat or</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">be eaten is the law of nature, and deep down we have</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">not forgotten. As many have observed, the horror of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956) was not of being</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">eaten but of the individual being replaced by a soulless,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">mass, robotic sameness – the horror of egalitarianism</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">taken to extremes. The modern zombie apocalypse</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">goes beyond the terror of conformity to the terror</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">of consumption. It is a brilliant fusion of two skincrawling</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">horrors, corpses and being devoured, with</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">a third—being hunted by your own flesh and blood,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">your neighbors and fellow countrymen in</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">invincible multitudes.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>Director George Romero, the godfather of cinematic</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">zombies, wrote the current narrative with “Night of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the Living Dead,” shot for peanuts in the Pennsylvania</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">countryside and released in 1968. The elements of the</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">contemporary zombie are all present: (1) Radiation</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">bursts from outer space have reanimated the brains of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the unburied dead, (2) making them ravenous for living</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">human flesh, and (3) stoppable only by a round to</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the brain. (4) Their bite infects and zombifies the bitten,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">and (5) they are on the move, in revolt as it were—conquering</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the world of the living one victim at a time.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>Since ’68 the zombie apocalypse storyline has exploded</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">in all directions. There now exist schools of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">zombiology: fast vs. slow zombies, extraterrestrial radiation</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">vs. earth-borne virus as the etiology of zombification,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">all-flesh diet vs. brains only—there is even a lively</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">debate over whether zombies have souls. Social satire</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">using the zombie trope began with Romero’s “Dawn of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the Dead” in 1978 and extends from Britain’s “Shaun of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the Dead” to Cuba’s very first entry, “Juan of the Dead.”</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>The most fun is to be had when the topic is taken</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">(semi-)seriously. In 2011 the Centers for Disease Control</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">viewed the zombie apocalypse as a way to teach</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">pandemic emergency preparedness: “You may laugh</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">this…” Survivalists are overjoyed to welcome fans to</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">their world of “41 Crucial Items You Cannot Survive</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Without When the Fight for Food Begins.” Sites like</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">SurvivalOutpost.com and ChaosPlanning.com paint</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">a picture of “violent mobs” of “savage beasts” “battling</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">to the death over a loaf of bread.” Cognitive</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">neuroscientists have likewise seized the opportunity</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">to parlay interest in “brains” into interest in their profession—</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">they playfully posit a Consciousness Deficit</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Hypoactivity Disorder to explain zomboid behavior.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">The zanily earnest Zombie Research Society (“What</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">you don’t know can eat you”) dedicates itself to minute</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">examination of everything from “Zombie Decay</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Theory” to “Zombie Hunting Behavior.” And so on.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>But do zombies have a basis in fact? Reports of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Haitians buried in a cataleptic states and later revived</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">for enslavement—for example, the 1980 case</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">of Clairvius Narcisse—have been credible enough</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">to prompt several scientific investigations. One of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the best known is that of Wade Davis, a Harvard</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">ethnobotanist who wrote <i>The Serpent and the Rainbow</i></span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">in 1985. His quest for zombinol, the “zombie</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">poison” he hoped might have applications for anesthesia</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">and prolonged space travel, was actually</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">successful in isolating several toxins with the property</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">to yield the results Friar Laurence described in</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><i><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Romeo and Juliet</span></i><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">:</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"> </span></div> </span> <blockquote><span style="font-size: 12pt;font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;color:black;" ><div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">When presently through all thy veins shall run</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Shall keep his native progress, but surcease;</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv’st;</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">To paly ashes, thy eyes’ windows fall</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Like death when he shuts up the day of life;</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Each part, depriv’d of supple government,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death;</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.<span style=""> </span></span></div></span></blockquote> <span style="font-size: 12pt;font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;color:black;" > <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"> </span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Most rich and strange of all zombie references,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">though, is this from the website GlobalSecurity.org:</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"> </span></div> </span> <blockquote><span style="font-size: 12pt;font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;color:black;" ><div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">[The] trance-producing potion might seem to be</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">a creation of the imagination, if it were not for</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the fact that many observers of Haiti from early</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">colonial times down to the early 20th Century</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">had vouched for the evidences of its use. Such a</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">poison was necessary to the cannibalistic Voodoo</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">devotees of slavery days, because slaves, as</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">valuable chattels, were carefully enumerated. The</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">chosen victim, usually a child, was dosed with</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the poison that brought on a condition simulating</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">death. The master, satisfied that he had lost</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">one of his human animals by natural causes,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">ordered the burial. Afterwards, the victim was</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">resuscitated for the sacrifice, since the Voodoo</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">rites require a living, conscious offering. …</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">The formula of the poison was obtained at four</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">widely separated localities in Haiti. The consistent</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">ingredients included one or more species of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">puffer fish (<i>Diodon hystrix, Diodon holacanthus</i></span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">or <i>Sphoeroides testudineus</i>) which contain tetrodotoxins,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">potent neurotoxins fully capable of</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">pharmacologically inducing the zombi state.</span></div></span></blockquote> <span style="font-size: 12pt;font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;color:black;" > <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"> </span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>Why GlobalSecurity.org requires a report like</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">this… maybe we don’t want to know. At any rate, let’s</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">conclude with a look at what the zombie meme symbolizes</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">today.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>The central horror of the zombie-apocalypse narrative</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">is that zombies resemble and are your own recently</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">departed near and dear. That ambivalence has</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">been present all along, but more and more today the</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">moral status of the zombie is being probed. If carnivorous</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">animals can’t be accused of murder when they</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">kill to eat, why should zombies be, cursed as they</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">are with the need to cannibalize? Can zombies be</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">tamed, trained, rehabilitated, even cured? Can they</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">be taught to eat chicken, or vegetables? The cannibal</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">history of mankind is revisited here to a disquieting</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">degree.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>Some have explained the zombie-apocalypse phenomenon</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">as fear of alien invasion or global plague or</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">even plain old urban anomie. But Max Brooks, author</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">of <i>World War Z</i>, notes that humans have always had</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">good reason to fear the <i>horde</i>: huge, human, and hideously</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">hungry. Right now this horde is our fellow man</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">in the form of millions faced with starvation in the developing</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">world. In the age of mass transportation and</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">communications, they are no longer content to sit and</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">wait for death. “They” are coming. The real-world images</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">are haunting: gaunt figures wearing ragged clothing,</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">disheveled, scrambling over fences and clawing</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">through tunnels, lurking in the darkness waiting for</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">a break…</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><span style=""> </span>There is never just one meaning to a symbol as</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">rich as the zombie. People have feared many things</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">in many different guises over the centuries, but some</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">fears are eternal and universal. Fear of the dead’s resentment—</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">survivor guilt—is one enduring terror.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">Zombies as Morlocks, have-nots overflowing into</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">the realms of plenty, tap into our sense that we may</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">not be able to hold onto our post-industrial advantages</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">much longer. Is there a remedy for the zombie</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">apocalypse other than a bullet to the brain? There</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">had better be. But the narrative so far has failed to</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);">imagine one.</span></div> <div style="" class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(13, 13, 13);"><br /></span></div> </span>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-19482035142737334722011-08-03T08:12:00.000-07:002015-01-21T18:48:58.921-08:00"Animal Lexicon" is available here!My longterm project, ANIMAL LEXICON, is now in its third edition and will be for sale through this blog. <br />
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It's a handmade book, 136 pages in length, 8.5" by 6.5" in size, stitch-bound, with original and public-domain artwork, including some hand coloring and stamping. The book is a humorous yet massively informative lexicon of English words and phrases based on the animal kingdom, arranged by taxa - that is, Kingdom/Phylum/Class/Order/Family/Genus/Species.<br />
The cost is $20 PPD.<br />
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Here's what a cover looks like: <br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y0BEUKJahug/TWFbAOMmHpI/AAAAAAAAACA/qIJVURYIV7A/s1600/Animal+Lexicon+cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y0BEUKJahug/TWFbAOMmHpI/AAAAAAAAACA/qIJVURYIV7A/s320/Animal+Lexicon+cover.jpg" height="320" width="220" /></a></div>
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And here are a few pages from the inside:<br />
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And a few more:<br />
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Available in a variety of colors:<br />
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<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-i91_xN5xNiY/TY0q-VJ1QII/AAAAAAAAACQ/GpepftOc6ow/s1600/IMG_1031.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-i91_xN5xNiY/TY0q-VJ1QII/AAAAAAAAACQ/GpepftOc6ow/s320/IMG_1031.JPG" width="210" /></a></div>
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Blue, too! <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jZ436LnD7d0/TbYVvWlGIBI/AAAAAAAAACc/x7lRXN1AasI/s1600/IMG_1047.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jZ436LnD7d0/TbYVvWlGIBI/AAAAAAAAACc/x7lRXN1AasI/s320/IMG_1047.JPG" height="197" width="320" /></a><br />
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And a few more pix for the road:<br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">To order a copy, the address is ANIMAL LEXICON, 1470 Crofton Parkway, Crofton, MD 21114. Checks and money orders welcome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 180%;">Thanks! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 180%;">Marian Coombs</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 180%;"><span style="color: #783f04;">Some commentary:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">From Georgie Anne Geyer, Washington, D.C.: "Your book is charming - I love it. So original ... so much fun and really informative.</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> I will enjoy giving them as gifts to the fastidious.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: x-small;">"</span></div>
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<a class="actorName" hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=722999960" href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=722999960">Janet Kester</a> <span jsid="text">Peoples of the world, this Lexicon was inspired by an animal god</span><br />
<span jsid="text">-- you must have it!</span></div>
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<pre>It's so very wonderful! I'll be curling up with the precious Lexicon
tonight, gray and black cats purring at my flanks.
xoxoxox,
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From D.R.B., Sacramento: "It's wild! It's wacko! It's so cool! A great book! Great art! Great binding! Brilliant! Obviously a labor of intellect and love. I cherish my copy."<br />
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From T.C., Philadelphia: "The Lexicon is half consumed - I can't wait to go back for more. I love when I read and can 'hear' the author's voice. ... The lexicon is a bargain at twice the price! Thank you."<br />
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From D.T., Maryland: <span style="font-size: 100%;">"</span><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 100%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial;">I love what you sent me! So many interesting tidbits and turns of phrases. I love the pictures of course also."</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 85%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">From J.M., Buffalo:</span> "</span></span>I got the Lexicon and it looks wonderful! I can only imagine the time and thought that you put into it. I have only begun to look through it but I expect to enjoy it for years to come."<br />
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From A.C., Maryland: "Your book is really GREAT."<br />
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From C.L., Berkeley: "<span style="font-family: ";">your lexicon collection is lovely; I love the calligraphy and ponder</span> <span style="font-family: ";">your style of choices to include."</span><br />
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From N.O., Woodbridge, VA: "SO CUTE."<br />
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From E.T., Berkeley, CA: "adorable!"<br />
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From J. V., Denver: "We loved your book ... Beautiful."<br />
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From Mr. R.J.L., Delaware: "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 20px;">I have spent a good part of this evening reading the book. All the way through --- couldn’t put it down. And enjoyed it!!! I was amused, bemused, and in the “Yeah—right on” mode. A lot of research and thought."</span>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-53440429632274361702011-07-23T20:17:00.000-07:002011-07-23T20:20:56.634-07:00Theses on the Scheme<span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><span><span style=";color:black;" ><span style=";color:black;" ><div> <div dir="ltr"> <b>Credit rating agencies</b> like Moody's and Standard & Poor's seem to be a player in the overall financial dilemma. They give the speculators, usurers, demagogues and thieves cover for their activities until it's too late. <div><br /></div> <div>Credit of course means <b>belief</b>. Creditworthy means believable. If you can't believe the <i>connoisseurs</i> of Belief, you'll have to believe your own senses. <div><br /></div> <div>There is no point in calling what's happening a <b>dilemma</b>, a <b>problem</b> or even a <b>crisis</b>. Because it is criminal, and even illegal, it should be called a <b>scheme</b> at the very least. <b>Scam</b> sounds too cute. It's been a long <b>con</b>. Conspiracy, or merely confidence game? Perhaps both.<br /> <div><br /></div> <div>The <b>debt ceiling </b>is obviously not a ceiling at all nor a limit of any kind. It exists to be exceeded. Even a fig leaf serves the purpose of hiding something. The debt ceiling no longer even hides anything. Like the agencies, it is an element of the Ponzi scheme.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>The U.S. is "in danger" of having its credit rating downgraded from Triple A to Double A. Obviously even this rating is far too high; the rating should be BS, or at least BR for "bankrupt," because we are - <b>bankrupt</b>, that is.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>A lowered credit rating will mean having to pay a higher interest rate to borrow. Why should the U.S. not have to pay higher interest to borrow? Higher interest is intended to <b>curb</b> borrowing (supply and demand). Isn't it a good idea for bankrupts to curb their borrowing?</div> <div><br /></div> <div>What will happen if the U.S. <b>defaults</b>? First, it would not happen immediately, as there is so much revenue pouring in and already on hand. But default would mark the beginning of the end of government by Ponzi scheme. It is probable that we can't even begin to end it without taking the hit of default. Default is that cold shower of Reality that our "leaders" have been desperate to avoid for so many years now. Since the U.S. is <b>not</b> good for its debts, default merely acknowledges that fact. Isn't the first step in ending addiction the recognition that the addiction exists?</div> </div> <div><br /></div> <div>By saying "We are not Greece," Obama confirms that we <b>are</b> Greece - we are all Greece now. Dilemma ... problema ... krisis ... schema ... It's all Greek to us.</div> </div> </div> </div></span></span></span></span>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-72082290494509275392011-07-16T07:21:00.000-07:002011-07-16T07:31:39.035-07:00The FormulaA beautiful summer it has been on this beautiful planet. What "summer" is on the other planets and their moons, one shudders to contemplate. What "summer" is for stars without planetary systems is even more problematic. I guess you have to be there.<div><br /></div><div>I dreamed last night that I dressed up in an expensive outfit, got my hair and nails done, etc., strolled out in my designer stilettos and was immediately taken for Somebody. They asked how I had become so successful, and I answered, "I just decided that everything about Life is wonderful, awe-inspiring, blessed, a gift and a joy," or words to that effect.</div><div><br /></div><div>I woke up feeling great! Now the trick is to remember the formula.</div>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-2213271891159935492011-04-10T08:34:00.000-07:002011-04-14T19:46:31.695-07:00Divide et impera"Divide and conquer" is as old as the hills, which is why it's rendered above in Latin. The imperial Romans used it and so have all successful rulers of mankind. It's a classic strategy for gaining and holding on to power.<br /><br />In the classless U.S. we call it class warfare, and it's been operating brilliantly since the era of Andrew Jackson to keep us headed in the direction of plutocracy. It's a simple formula: I resent you for making $7,500 bucks a year more than I do, you resent some guy for having a "Cadillac" healthcare plan, that guy resents me for not being "under water" on my mortgage, still another guy resents both of us for our "gold-plated" pensions.<br /><br />It's chump change they've got us squabbling over, folks. Sure, public employee unions are by no means "heroic laborers" in the mold of coal miners, longshoremen, weavers, textile workers, teamsters or steelworkers. But that doesn't mean they're the enemy either. However "lavish" (compared to what?) the deals union leaders have cut with their state employers, it's just stupid to scapegoat other working people as the cause of all our financial woes. For one thing, they're not. For another, it's class-warfare, divide-and-conquer rhetoric, and we're falling for it. Again.<br /><br />We need <span style="font-style: italic;">more</span> unions, in fact, not fewer. Most existing unions may well be corrupt, job-destroying slush funds for politicians - but they are among the last forms of self-organization We the People have. A society without grass-roots, local, voluntary associations (if you ever studied history, they used to call them Friendly Societies, and along with churches and synagogues they were the origin of credit unions, savings and loans, insurance companies, unemployment and disability compensation, fire departments, schools, hospitals, homeless shelters and many other fine things) is a society already divided and conquered. Think thrice before you support breaking up Big Labor. Organize yourself instead of disorganizing others.<br /><br /><span>Another example of that insidious D&C rhetoric:</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> The New York Times</span> is not what you'd think of as a populist broadsheet, so when it runs articles like "Enriching a Few at the Expense of Many" (April 10, 2011), you have to wonder. Companies should exist, the article argues, for the benefit of shareholders, not insiders. Shareholders and investors are the owners of a company; "excessive" executive pay robs these owners of their fair share of company profits and may even bankrupt the company in the end.<br /><br />The general outrage at "Wall Street" in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008-present takes a similar form. People feel they have the right to condemn private corporations for "overcompensating" their CEOs and other top employees. The government should "do something" about it.<br /><br />Hell, the government would love to. They're always trying to take over the private sector and dictate its every move. The populist <span style="font-style: italic;">ressentiment</span> spawned by the 2008 crash finds favor with an administration whose upper reaches are more populated than ever by literally dozens of revolving-door alumni of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, etc. Capitalism for the ruling class, socialism for the masses - <span style="font-style: italic;">that's</span> what we need to be looking at, not who got some chump-change million-dollar bonus. If shareholders own these companies, let <span style="font-style: italic;">them</span> deal with how much the brass gets compensated. It's amazing how laserlike people's attentiveness becomes when their own money's at stake.<br /><br />The point is, rich people aren't the problem. Personal wealth is not the problem. Most of us want to get rich; just because someone else is rich doesn't mean you can't be rich as well. Not only do most rich people get rich from being smart and inventing things and processes - and then invest their riches to create goods and services and jobs - but people ascend to riches and topple from riches all the time. It is not a static category.<br /><br />More crucially, there's a difference between being <span style="font-style: italic;">powerful</span> and just being rich. The powerful are rich, but not all the rich are powerful. Archimedes, the famed Greek mathematician and inventor, once stated that if he had a place to stand and a lever long enough, he could move the earth itself. It's not how much personal wealth you possess, but whether you are in a position or are motivated to <span style="font-style: italic;">leverage</span> it: to wield it like an instrument, a weapon to force "change," to crush opponents, to buy loyalties, to suborn consciences, to seed the media with Big Lies, to scare off advertisers and investors and supporters, to sap the value of currencies, to suck dry any remaining pockets of independent power, to orchestrate fictitious conflicts, to betray secrets, to corrupt ideals - and to rip off the little people of all nations.<br /><br />Some of these leveragers aren't even super wealthy. All they've done is maneuver themselves into top decision-making spots at big foundations and trusts and hedge funds. A few billion bucks in the right hands is a great force-multiplier, a major magnifier of intent.<br /><br />To return to the financial crisis, the state could gouge all the "excessive" cash out of every millionaire and all 400 billionaires in America, and that still wouldn't cover the interest on our sovereign debt for a single year. And the following year when the state returned for more, there would remain neither golden eggs nor geese for them to seize.<br /><br />We need to ask different questions and quit lapsing into the same old tired whinging about who's "working class" and who's "bourgeois," who's "underprivileged" and who's "overprivileged." I frankly can't think of anyone more overprivileged than a U.S. congressman, except maybe the president. The main question we need to ask is:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">To whom</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> do we owe</span> this amazing treasure trove of $14+ trillion? Who are they, where do they live, and where did they get those trillions - quadrillions - to lend to us and to the rest of the world? What do they expect for their unwanted largesse?<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Fo6iGgbHeU/TaY4URaRwWI/AAAAAAAAACU/bN0lfDOIYu8/s1600/formula-compound-interest.gif"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 102px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Fo6iGgbHeU/TaY4URaRwWI/AAAAAAAAACU/bN0lfDOIYu8/s320/formula-compound-interest.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595221507976577378" border="0" /></a> Here's the compound interest formula:<br />It's an exponential function.<br />It adds up dizzylingly fast.<br />And it's all perfectly legal!<br /><br /><br />The U.S. economy is now the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the planet. It works something like this:<br /><br />The government demands to spend fantastic amounts of money on whatever Good Works pop into its head. The money is created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve. The government then owes the money to the Fed (and our close friend China, among others). The government taxes individuals and businesses to pay back the debt - or actually, just the <span style="font-style: italic;">interest</span> on the debt, or debt service, because they are in no position to pay back principal at this point. So the Fed gets repaid with <span style="font-style: italic;">real</span> money in exchange for the fiat, ersatz, unsecured, digitized currency they've issued. This is a major way the transfer of wealth from working people - blue collar, white collar, professional, small business and corporate - occurs.<br /><br />The debt service portion of the budget is far more untouchable than entitlement and defense spending. At least the latter two budget segments are mentioned as cuttable now and again. Debt forgiveness is unmentionable. Unthinkable!<br /><br />But what would happen if we tried to renegotiate or even repudiate all that accumulated, compounded, usurious indebtedness, all those loans so heedlessly made in our and our children's and our grandchildren's names? What would happen if we declared bankruptcy, defaulted, just walked away? Who would come after us? The IRS? That handful of old guys at the Fed? The tanned septuagenarians of the Council on Foreign Relations, World Bank, IMF, Trilateral Commission, Club of Rome or Bilderberg Group?<br /><br />Where are their legions? Do they command an armed force, which after all is what lurks behind all "promises to pay" and the "full faith and credit" of the financial system? Would their behest be enough to send troops on the march against fellow Americans?<br /><br />The only threat mentioned when - horror of horrors - anyone brings up the "specter of default" on the sovereign debt is that the banks would quit lending to us. Perfect! We don't <span style="font-style: italic;">want</span> to borrow any more. We didn't want to borrow any more $14 trillion ago!<br /><br />Some believe we need our <span>own</span> billionaire, a People's billionaire, someone who can't be bought and can't be ruined by the scratch of a pen like the rest of us can, who will represent the little people of this country and stand up for us against the Great Indebtors. This is the allure of a Perot, a Bloomberg or a Trump.<br /><br />But maybe we don't need such a savior. Maybe we can walk away, just walk away and see what happens. File Chapter 7-11 or whatever number it is. Push the reset button. Do-over. Clear the screen and reboot. You can come out now, all is forgiven ...<br /><br />Is any banker going to starve because Citigroup took a bath on its bad investments? More likely a whole lot of little people <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> starve if we don't get out from under those suspiciously sacred obligations.<br /><br />Forgive and forget: it could be our only way out.Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-31424498712769372092011-02-05T11:00:00.000-08:002011-02-20T08:56:01.576-08:00Salt of the EarthSALT is a mineral (sodium chloride, <span style="font-weight: bold;">NaCl</span>) that most forms of terrestrial life need to survive. The idiom that means you are "entitled to live" is "to be worth your salt." Several cultures welcome guests with a dish of bread and salt - bread for hospitality and salt for friendship.<br /><br />The hierarchy of eating at a table was long described as sitting "below the salt" or "above the salt." The value of salt and its scarcity in the ancient world were such that the Romans paid their legions partly in <span style="font-style: italic;">sal</span>, root of the word "salary." (It is also the root of the word "salacious.") The discovery that salt preserved perishable food ("curing") was a key element in the transition of humanity from hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists.<br /><br />"To rub salt in a wound" is painful, but helps the wound heal. Rome made sure that Carthage would not rise again by sowing its lands with salt ...<br /><br />Our blood, our sweat and our tears are all salty. So is the fluid that sustains us before birth - a brew that harks back to the oceans whence we came.<br /><br />The human tongue possesses specialized areas for the tasting of salt. A salt craving arises just like thirst and hunger when the body senses its lack. Animals travel thousands of miles to reach deposits of salt. Drawing dramatic attention to the <span style="font-style: italic;">need</span> for salt: In Werner Herzog's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God," the Spaniards root like hogs to get at a vein of salt in the ground, and in Peter Weir's "The Way Back" at least one man becomes obsessed with salt even as he wastes away. In my own family there are two salt-cravers and two salt-take-it-or-leavers, so there is probably a genetic basis for degrees of salt-savoring.<br /><br />Places all over the world have been named for their abundance of natural salt - Tuzla in Bosnia, Salzburg in Austria, French Lick in Indiana (see poem by Stephen Vincent Benét below), Saline in Kansas, Big Lick in Tennessee, Paint Lick in Kentucky, Beaver Lick in Missouri and so on. One source notes that <blockquote>The Romans ... called [the Celts] Galli or Gauls, coming from a Greek word, used by the Egyptians as well, <span style="font-style: italic;">hal</span>, meaning 'salt.' They were the salt people. The name of the town that sits on an East German salt bed, Halle, like the Austrian towns of Hallein, Swabisch Hall and Hallstat, has the same root as do both Galicia in northern Spain and Galicia in southern Poland, where the town of Halych is found. All these places were named for Celtic saltworks. ... Like the ancient Chinese emperors, [the Celts] based their economy on salt and iron ...<br /></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>(from<span style="font-style: italic;"> Salt: A World History</span> by Mark Kurlansky - great book!)<br /><br />The word "hal" is preserved in the name for rock salt crystals, halite. (I wonder if it might also be the root of "Hail," healing and health.)<br /><br />Desperate quests and wars and endless caravans have been launched to secure supplies of salt, and riots have erupted over taxes on salt. Surveyors in early America were instructed to "to make note of (the following): the quality of soil and the situation of all mines, salt licks, salt springs and mill seats which may come to your knowledge and are to be regarded and noticed in your field books.”<br /><br />The Egyptians used what they called <span style="font-style: italic;">natrun</span> (from the Wadi Natrun or Salt Valley, a source of naturally occurring sodium carbonate) to preserve mummies, which is where sodium got its chemical symbol <span style="font-weight: bold;">Na</span> (via the borrowed Greek <span style="font-style: italic;">nitron</span> and Latin <span style="font-style: italic;">natrium</span>).<br /><br />Generations of schoolchildren have thrilled to the realization that <span style="font-weight: bold;">sodium</span> - a soft, light, sinuous silvery-white alkaline metal that explodes on contact with water - combines with <span style="font-weight: bold;">chlorine</span> - a burning greenish-yellow halogen gas - to form common ordinary table salt.<br /><br />Sodium chloride not only preserves food and pharaohs but is essential to <blockquote>transmission of nerve impulses around the body, regulating the electrical charges moving in and out of the cells. It also controls our taste, smell and tactile processes and helps our muscles, including the heart, to contract.<br /><br /><p>Chloride is important for a range of vital processes including digestion and the absorption of potassium into the body. It also helps the blood to carry carbon dioxide from respiring tissues to the lungs and preserves the acid-base balance in the body.</p><p>When the immune system is under attack, chlorine helps to fight off infection since hypochlorite, a chlorine-containing compound, forms in white blood cells and either attacks the germs itself, or helps to activate other agents that carry out the same function. </p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size:85%;"> (from "Salt and Physiology" by the European Salt Producers' Association)</span></p><p>I've been thinking about Salt now that bans on added salt are being contemplated by various levels of government. The thinking is that money will be saved that would have been spent on the consequences of high dietary sodium, which some studies blame for hypertension and its attendant ills. Not all scientists believe sodium is the culprit, though. And clearly a lot of people ingest copious amounts of salt all their lives without ill effect.</p><p>The spectre of a Salt Czar has been raised, in any case. Considering the vital importance of salt to human history and the human body, it might not be a good idea to let any group, no matter how "well-intentioned," dictate whether we may savor our salt or not. We have learned the hard way the we must take schemes for the Improvement of Mankind <span style="font-style: italic;">cum grano salis</span>.* One man's flavor is another man's poison; to each his own; there is no accounting for taste - nor should there be. For "if the <span class="ex">salt</span> hath lost its savour, with what shall it be salted?"</p><p><span style="font-style: italic;"> *with a grain of salt</span></p><p><br /></p><blockquote></blockquote><span style="font-size:130%;"><b>American Names</b></span><br /><b>by Stephen Vincent Ben</b><span style="font-weight: bold;">é</span><b>t</b><p> </p><p> I have fallen in love with American names,<br />The sharp names that never get fat,<br />The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,<br />The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,<br />Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat. </p><p> Seine and Piave are silver spoons,<br />But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn,<br />There are English counties like hunting-tunes<br />Played on the keys of a postboy's horn,<br />But I will remember where I was born. </p><p> I will remember Carquinez Straits,<br />Little French Lick and Lundy's Lane,<br />The Yankee ships and the Yankee dates<br />And the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane.<br />I will remember Skunktown Plain. </p><p> I will fall in love with a Salem tree<br />And a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz,<br />I will get me a bottle of Boston sea<br />And a blue-gum n***** to sing me blues.<br />I am tired of loving a foreign muse. </p><p> Rue des Martyrs and Bleeding-Heart-Yard,<br />Senlis, Pisa, and Blindman's Oast,<br />It is a magic ghost you guard<br />But I am sick for a newer ghost,<br />Harrisburg, Spartanburg, Painted Post. </p><p> Henry and John were never so<br />And Henry and John were always right?<br />Granted, but when it was time to go<br />And the tea and the laurels had stood all night,<br />Did they never watch for Nantucket Light? </p><p> I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.<br />I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.<br />You may bury my body in Sussex grass,<br />You may bury my tongue at Champmédy.<br />I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.<br />Bury my heart at Wounded Knee. </p>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-86901564304439897302010-12-08T15:19:00.000-08:002010-12-12T20:16:55.125-08:00What Is a Zombie, and Why Does It Want to Eat Us?<span style="font-style: italic;">The New York Times</span> ran an article in its December 5, 2010, edition --<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/arts/television/05zombies.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/arts/television/05zombies.html</a> --<br /><br />arguing that Zombies are in vogue because they remind people of their own repetitive, mindless everyday lives:<br /><blockquote></blockquote><p> </p><blockquote style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">What if contemporary people are less interested in seeing depictions of their unconscious fears and more attracted to allegories of how their day-to-day existence feels? That would explain why so many people watched that first episode of “The Walking Dead”: They knew they would be able to relate to it.<br /><br />A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies.<br /></blockquote> <p style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"></p><p></p>The author goes on to suggest that such modern tasks as deleting unwanted email resemble Zombie-killing in that they're simple, easy, mechanical - and yet endless: "The zombies you kill today will merely be replaced by the zombies of tomorrow."<br /><br />I have a different interpretation. I think horror is all about our fears, whether unconscious, preconscious, semi-conscious or conscious - that's why it's horrific.<br /><br />What do Zombies do? They eat you. You can't feed them anything else, like apples or dog food, or get them to feast on one another. No, NO, they want to eat YOU out of house and home and all your substance. They want to turn your vibrant, thriving individual person into a heap of decaying remains.<br /><br />The most ghastly thing in the world to just about every human being is a corpse. We fear Death and we are terrified of the Dead.<br /><br />The second most ghastly thing is the prospect of being eaten - not just eaten, but eaten ALIVE.<br /><br />The Zombie Apocalypse brilliantly combines these two horrors, but adds a third element: a MASS of Zombies, slow-moving and defenseless but so numerous and ravenous as to be unstoppable.<br /><br />Why is this vision so compelling? Because in the back of our minds, we know that there really is such a threat. We are constantly warned about it and commanded to feel responsible for it, and even told we deserve to be destroyed by it. At the same time we aren't supposed to talk about it.<br /><br />What is this threat? The near-starvation of millions in the "underdeveloped" world. No longer are teeming poverty-stricken masses sitting put and quietly dying as they wait for rescue. In the age of mass communication and mass transportation, they are on the move.<br /><br />They have already begun coming. As the horror movie line goes, "They're HEE-ere ..." We see images of them all the time - thin bony people wearing ragged clothes, scrambling through tunnels and across fences, lurking in the darkness waiting for a break, taking huge risks to reach the (over?)developed world and -<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">grab a bite to eat</span>.<br /><br />The best-quality Zombie treatments at least hint at the uneasy relationship between the Living and the Undead, the Pure and the Infected. George Romero kicked off the franchise in 1968 with plenty of tragedy and irony. Shaun of the Dead managed to tame his Zombified "mate" Ed and turn him into a tolerable telly-watching companion. I didn't go to see "Zombieland" because the trailer showed Zombies being simply soullessly mowed down. But American Movie Classics' new series "The Walking Dead" is showing signs of sensitivity to the fact that there but for fortune and a drop of blood or saliva may go any of us: its Zombies need more to be put out of their misery than brutally terminated.<br /><br />The tension between the person the Zombie was and the Thing to which it has been reduced makes for great if horrifying storytelling. As with the tension between human and machine ("I, Robot," "The Terminator," "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence," "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"), we yearn to respond to any humanity we detect, even in cyborgs or the Undead. It is a bitter lesson when we learn we can't afford to do that.<br /><br />Who will win World War Z? Is there a remedy for Zombie invasion other than a bullet to the brain? I wonder what popular culture is telling us.<br /><p> </p>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-73693824005735084952010-11-05T15:43:00.000-07:002010-11-07T07:57:31.269-08:00It's Not Just the Full Moon Any MoreL.S. came up with this title as we were yukking it up about our "adventures" teaching in the public schools, so I thought I'd steal it since she, like everyone else on the planet, does not read my blog.<div><br /></div><div>What the title refers to is this:</div><div><br /></div><div>Just as ZOMBIES are the psychic manifestation or personalization of our fear that starving hordes in hand-me-down clothes are coming to devour us,</div><div><br /></div><div>so the various contemporary story lines about werewolves, feral children and people being "bitten" by something and infected by some rabies-like RAGE virus and going mad ("28 Days Later," "28 Weeks Later," "I Am Legend," "30 Days of Night," etc.) intensely resemble - at least to L.S. and me and probably a lot of other "educators" - the kids we confront on a daily basis at all levels of the U.S. educational penitentiary.</div><div><br /></div><div>Like those bitten and infected unfortunates, there are just so many kids out there who seem to be on some perpetual mindless treadmill of disruption, defiance, destruction and chaos. They are violently allergic to peace, quiet, order, learning, reason ... they break it up the second any of these blessed states takes hold in the classroom. One pities the poor tormented little creatures. </div>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-74923091949239836882010-09-25T11:07:00.000-07:002010-09-26T13:17:21.725-07:00Cloudy with a chance of bubblesWhat is "the cloud"? It sounds too good to be true: a Happy Place where data are stored without ever perishing or degrading or running out of space.<br /><br />But what have we been told about things that sound too good to be true? Oh yeah, they turn into <span style="font-style: italic;">bubbles</span>, and bubbles burst, and burst bubbles create chaos and pain and poverty.<br /><br />Looking for a precise definition of <span style="font-weight: bold;">cloud computing</span>, a definition that would avoid the telltale ecstatic dreaminess of proto-bubblistic thought, I found this (see link at <span style="text-decoration: underline;"> </span><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/so-what-is-the-cloud-exactly-experts-want-to-know/13662">http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/so-what-is-the-cloud-exactly-experts-want-to-know/13662</a> ).<br /><br />Seven experts were asked to define the cloud, and their answers were, and I quote:<br /><br />1. A way of delivering value and monetization efficiency.<br /><br />2. The notion of data and applications and hardware sources being accessed remotely.<br /><br />3. 20 years ago your typical knowledge worker got 80 percent of the info needed to do their job from inside the company. Today, it’s completely flipped. Cloud computing is the technical response to this reality.<br /><br />4. Providing value with computational devices.<br /><br />5. I agree with Larry Ellison, I think cloud computing is a lot of hype.<br /><br />6. Cloud computing is getting all the advantages of computing [without one]. ... Cloud computing is all about making it easier for people who create applications to provide them without the headaches of hardware.<br /><br />7. <span style="font-style: italic;">Cloud</span> is the worst buzzword I’ve ever heard. Vapor, something you can’t touch. I think it’s a lot of hype, but then again, here I am offering that service.<br /><br />8. Extracting applications from hardware and networks.<br /><br />9. Almost inevitable – self-serving technology on demand.<br /><br />10. The solution to what you have in your basement.<br /><br />11. As more and more people need it, it makes sense to provide it as a utility.<br /><br />12. Virtualization is the promise to compute, but it is not actually computing.<br /><br />13. To some degree, we’re talking about capacity … at some point, hardware becomes obsolete.<br /><br /><br />The moderator of this forum makes it confusingly clear from the outset that "although cloud computing is hard to define, it’s the <span style="font-weight: bold;">reality</span> of how it affects us on a daily basis — rather than its definition — that is important." Maybe that's why he didn't extract a coherent definition from any of these guys. Just dramatically invoking "reality" trumps concrete use of language in this universe.<br /><br />One of the participants later adds, helpfully if a bit alarmingly:<br /><blockquote>We’re not so concerned with the hype or what you call it – for us, what it amounts to is <span style="font-weight: bold;">real</span>. The best example for us are the cybercriminals – they’re the ones who are the most effective users of the cloud today, with botnets and tens of thousands of zombie computers. That kind of power. That’s what we’re dealing with.<br /><br /></blockquote>Another participant demands, "What are we putting in place to make sure we have a stable system? There’s only so much electricity, silicon, storage. It’s systemic in our society, but not everyone understands." Is cloud computing supposed to be that "stable system"?<br /><br />So ... the cloud is everywhere because it can be nowhere, and nowhere because it can be everywhere. It is computing without a computer. It is a "promise" to compute, not computation itself, as our money is now a "promise" to pay, not payment itself. The cloud is information from "outside." Right now it is the playground of cybercriminals (but that will change?). It provides stability without utilizing "electricity, silicon [or] storage." It is even more "virtual" than computing, which I'd thought was virtuality itself. It is the magical solution to the physical limits of power generation, bandwidth, processors and silicon chips.<br /><br />Despite their lack of physical existence, "there will be private clouds," assures one expert. Down-to-earth computers already lack any privacy whatever; supposedly firewalls made of cloud will prove more unbreachable than those of mere circuitry?<br /><br />No matter how "remote" the location, the cloud must still exist somewhere. Mustn't it? Unless it's a mathematical point, which has no mass, or an electron, which has no fixed location. All of earth's knowledge contained in a massless point, a placeless particle, virtual virtuality ... Businesses as well as individuals might well feel insecure about relinquishing their data to be "stored" and accessed from such a no-man's land.<br /><br />The cloud is external and universal. It is the concept that all data will be "outsourced" to some vague mega-processor in the sky (cloud cuckoo-land, I believe the British call it). The Information of all the world will be up for app. But the cloud is, first and foremost, a business opportunity. The next big thing! We know the warning signs by now: the glazed dazed look, the beatific smile, the catch in the throat when speaking of the Beloved, the absolute certainty, the blissful imperviousness to logic, the beautiful belief that this time, this time, there WILL be something for nothing ...<br /><blockquote></blockquote>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-53618848705630694792010-08-26T09:46:00.000-07:002010-08-26T13:48:59.652-07:00Sharon Who?I'd heard of the famous Port Huron Statement made by Students for a Democratic Society, but not, until very recently, of the Sharon Statement made by its antagonist, Young Americans for Freedom.<div><br /></div><div>Sharon Tate? Sharon Stone? No, the Sharon Statement was a political position paper arrived at by a small group of YAF members who met for a couple of days at the Buckley family home in Sharon, Connecticut. Written up by M. Stanton Evans, the statement was issued on September 11, 1960.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Port Huron Statement, named for the town in Michigan and written largely by Tom Hayden, appeared about two years later, in mid-June 1962. It was the product of months of rancorous wrangling within SDS -- although nowhere near at the level such infighting rose to toward that organization's disintegration a mere seven years later.</div><div><br /></div><div>Clearly the New Left was aware of "Sharon" at the time and were determined to counter it. Not that the mainstream media was giving YAF the time of day. As a high school student I was actually able to read the Port Huron Statement, but heard very little about YAF.</div><div><br /></div><div>The two statements make an interesting and still useful contrast. For one thing, Hayden rattled on 12 times as long as Evans. But compare for yourselves:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www2.fiu.edu/%7Eyaf/sharon.html">http://www2.fiu.edu/~yaf/sharon.html</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.h-net.org/%7Ehst306/documents/huron.html">http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/huron.html</a></div>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-80183684737206005772010-01-25T18:44:00.000-08:002010-01-25T18:59:35.987-08:00Paradoxes of the Marxian Belief SystemThere are several. Here are four; please feel free to add more.<br /><br /><br />1. "The People must rule" - and because we know what the People want better than they know themselves (i.e., because they're <span style="font-style: italic;">stupid</span>), we are justified in taking power in Their name and governing against Them whenever necessary.<br /><br />2. "The People are innately good" - and this is why the People must be tricked and coerced and forced into Doing the Right Thing and never allowed to have Their own selfish petty-bourgeois way.<br /><br />3. "We love the People" - as an abstraction, that is, not as individuals; in fact socialists are notorious for their antisocial, unmannerly, boorish behavior toward flesh-and-blood human beings.<br /><br />4. "The capitalist system is inherently doomed to collapse" - but because it never quite seems to do so fast or furiously enough, we need to help it along with Cloward and Piven strategies, designed to overwhelm and crash the system with impossible demands.Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-39528230468091423262009-12-13T11:09:00.000-08:002009-12-16T20:12:34.534-08:00The ParasiteI came upon a book called <span style="font-style: italic;">The Parasite</span> (1982) by Michel Serres, a French philosopher. He examines parasitism of all kinds, from natural to existential, using language, fables and everthing else he can think of. One chapter in particular reminded me of the famous "healthcare debate":<br /><br />Serres recounts the fable of the man who picks up an apparently freezing snake and takes it home to warm it by his own hearth. The snake wakes up, is startled and angered, and bites the man. Serres continues:<br /><br /><blockquote>"The serpent was not a lessee; he was not looking for a haven; he was answered without having called. He was given an uncalled-for opinion. Someone made himself the serpent's benefactor, savior, and father. You are sleeping quite peacefully, and when you wake you find yourself in debt. You live with no other need, and suddenly someone claims to have saved your country, protected your class, your interests, your family, and your table. And you have to pay him for that, vote for him, and other such grimaces. ... Who has to pay? The litigation is serious. Who is the host and who is the guest? Where is the gift and where is the debt? Who is hospitable, who is hostile? ...<br /><br />"Who among you allows himself to be displaced, carried from his home territory, permits himself to be the passive object of another's whim? ... Who would thank, moreover, the one who decides for you? That would be the same as giving recognition to professional politicians. To those who see and consider others as if they were rocks, cold stones. To those who force others to be only objects, which then can be carried. To those who are astonished when the passive object suddenly wakes up and lashes out in anger. The one who did not lash out against his benefactors, saviors, and fathers would be forgetting all his duties, as would he who did not pass from cold passivity to the heat of battle. Ready to die."</blockquote>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2389931132313905242.post-2877680780198529962009-11-23T05:50:00.000-08:002009-11-24T09:01:54.288-08:002012It's only 3 years and one month away. As Neil Cavuto pointed out on his show the other day, one of the lures of the 2012 scenario is that it functions as a massive reset button - we've got more than a few "fine messes" on our hands, and wouldn't it be handy to be able to dump them over the side and watch them vanish forever into a huge fiery gape in the earth ...<div><br /></div><div>Spoilsports keep repeating that the Mayan calendar does not <i>end</i> in 2012, but merely begins a new cycle. Ah, but the advent of a new cycle may well be an occasion for turbulence, dislocation, realignment - "the end, when God untunes the sky" - if only temporarily.</div><div><br /></div><div>Belief that the world we know it is about to end, or <i>has</i> to end because it is unsustainable, is at a very high point. There is a longing, not yet overwhelming but tangible and growing, for radical simplicity and renewal. And if we have to look at images of California sliding into the Pacific in overbuilt chunks to stir up our juices, so be it, I guess.</div><div><br /></div><div>The film itself manages to turn people from just about every continent into stock figures: the earth mother, the waffling pol, the clandestine-murderous pol, the selfless scientist, the blonde bimbo with toy dog, the obnoxious overweight rich kid, the absentee father, and so on. Millions of tiny computerized human figures die terrible deaths by fire, earthquake, volcano and tsunami as our heroes escape by airplane. Then their sneaky breach of one of the "arks" intended to save the elite of the earth and man's cultural treasures nearly gets everyone aboard killed. Then the selfless scientist risks <i>all</i> the arks by suddenly deciding to let in the thousand or so folks about to be abandoned at the ark site. Everyone feels better about himself (forget the other billions) and of course the rescue succeeds without a second to spare and miraculously there are no ill effects from having taken on extra hundreds of people.</div><div><br /></div><div>The director reportedly just laughed when asked if he were going to include scenes of Muslim holy sites undergoing destruction; he commented, "My co-writer Harald [Kloser] said, 'I'm not writing this to get a fatwa on my head.' We have Jesus falling apart in all kinds of forms. The Vatican falls on people's heads, and we can do that because we're a free, Western society, but if there would be, like, Mecca destroyed, there would be an outrage. And so you don't do it." Yes, the film shows the Pope, all the cardinals, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's basilica and the whole square full of praying believers being crushed and buried in mid-prayer. One thing you can say about modern Christians, they sure can take a joke.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have a strong weakness for end-of-the-world scenarios, but usually prefer those with more realistic and achievable odds for survival. Of all the world's-end narratives I've heard, the "planetary alignment/solar flare/neutrinos mutating into microwaves/core boils/crust destabilizes" one is by far the least likely. I have to agree with Robin Cook that, barring a sizable asteroid that just blunders in out of nowhere, our most likely big die-off will come of a mutated influenza virus combining the high transmissibility of one strain with the high lethality of another.</div><div><br /></div><div>There really are a lot of dooms to choose from, though. So many ends, so little time.</div>Marian Coombshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05197352506708279841noreply@blogger.com0