It is my one indulgence, and I can't really do a thing about it. You see, I am away skiing right now, and there are just too many vertical feet I feel I must descend (and ascend). Thus, I am not really here, if you know what I mean.
Call me White Nitro.
Peace.
BG
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Reunion (In The Day Room)
The other night I spoke on the phone with a relative to whom I’ve not spoken in years. In the course of our conversation, while discussing what I have been doing with my life, I mentioned this website. One wonders what I was thinking, since I rarely mention this blog to anyone. But my relation expressed enthusiasm about reading some of my work, so that counts for something. After some ado about many other things, we ended our talk.
Three days later, as I survey the sorts of things I’ve written here and the manner in which they’ve been written, I am certain that my relations will reach the rather easy conclusion that I am insane.
Peace.
Three days later, as I survey the sorts of things I’ve written here and the manner in which they’ve been written, I am certain that my relations will reach the rather easy conclusion that I am insane.
Peace.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Sitting In The Doctor’s Office, Waiting For My Wife
I went to the nurse today complaining of an excess of joy. I told her that my stomach was churning with delight; that my hands tingled with bliss and my head pounded with gratitude. I wonder, I said, if there is something wrong. How could I be sick with happiness? How could I be fraught with peace? How could I be wracked with innocence? Should I see the doctor?
She replied that she was glad that I was feeling better. She noted that my complaints from last month no longer seemed relevant. It is clear that your skin has cleared up, she said, and that there are no signs of the deep wounds that once dripped with sarcasm. It looks too like you are no longer biting your tongue or your lip, and that you’re no longer straining to look backwards. I can feel no spasms of regret; the knots of second-guessing seem to have been smoothed away; and the arthritis of cynicism seems to have vanished, leaving your hands free. And I cannot tell you how glad I am to see that you are so fully rested.
There was nothing I could tell her that explained my sudden change, but I told her what I knew: When I woke from what began as a restless sleep but by dawn had become a deep calm, my head was deliciously dizzy with a wine I had not sipped. My arms were light with a spirit I did not earn. There were proverbs on the back of my hands, though I cannot see them now. There were scriptures flying past my window, with many of them gathering in gentle flocks beneath my bird feeders. My heartbeat was a chorus of angels; my ears rang with choruses of hope, my tongue was sweet with glad tidings. And while the thermometer outside my window was filled with gold, my barometer offered no report. And then I saw that my watch pointed to the hour of redemption.
What does all this mean? I asked, laughter spilling from my mouth.
You know what it means, she said, reaching up and wiping ashes off my forehead. It means you’ve already seen the doctor.
Peace to you on this Ash Wednesday.
Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
She replied that she was glad that I was feeling better. She noted that my complaints from last month no longer seemed relevant. It is clear that your skin has cleared up, she said, and that there are no signs of the deep wounds that once dripped with sarcasm. It looks too like you are no longer biting your tongue or your lip, and that you’re no longer straining to look backwards. I can feel no spasms of regret; the knots of second-guessing seem to have been smoothed away; and the arthritis of cynicism seems to have vanished, leaving your hands free. And I cannot tell you how glad I am to see that you are so fully rested.
There was nothing I could tell her that explained my sudden change, but I told her what I knew: When I woke from what began as a restless sleep but by dawn had become a deep calm, my head was deliciously dizzy with a wine I had not sipped. My arms were light with a spirit I did not earn. There were proverbs on the back of my hands, though I cannot see them now. There were scriptures flying past my window, with many of them gathering in gentle flocks beneath my bird feeders. My heartbeat was a chorus of angels; my ears rang with choruses of hope, my tongue was sweet with glad tidings. And while the thermometer outside my window was filled with gold, my barometer offered no report. And then I saw that my watch pointed to the hour of redemption.
What does all this mean? I asked, laughter spilling from my mouth.
You know what it means, she said, reaching up and wiping ashes off my forehead. It means you’ve already seen the doctor.
Peace to you on this Ash Wednesday.
Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Goin' Up To The Scrubber In The Sky
Imagine all the deep-blue sky, free of CO2. It isn't hard to do. It's easy if you try. The clean blue sky, it's where I'm gonna go when I die.
Sir Richard Branson, music industry icon, billionaire tycoon, owner of an airline -- an ambitious man who has had big oil interests -- has called attention to his deep and generous concern. He wants a cleaner, healthier biosphere. He wants a cooler planet, one with thicker and broader ice caps; with shallower oceans. He wants longer, colder, more difficult winters. And he is willing to give away $25 million to the first person who can keep winter icy-hard.
The AP (and everyone else) reported this weekend that Sir Branson, of Virgin Atlantic Airlines (and Virgin everything else), hopes that his largesse shall spur on competition for a sort of atmospheric scrubber, or a sort of sponge, or a sort of respirator, that will remove harmful levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One can't hardly be more impressed with such a noble call: Sir Branson has tapped into the deep reserves of scientific genius in the hopes of finding a cure for our self-inflicted malady.
That, I believe, is the big global warming story of the day.
But the real story is this, no?
Here we have a man who is heavily invested in the airline industry calling for someone -- anyone -- to bring forward some device or method that expurgates harmful levels of CO2 from the atmosphere. Now, let us imagine that I, of all people, have the answer to Sir Branson's challenge, and that I win his $25 million award; imagine that CO2 gases are indeed reduced, and the earth's atmosphere begins to cool to "normal" temperatures. What would happen?
What would happen is that people would not reduce their use of oil at all; rather, they would increase it. Find the certain cure for cancer and everyone starts smoking. In other words, Sir Branson's challenge is billowing with self-interest. He wants to destroy the effects of carbon-based fuel consumption in order to protect the use of carbon fuels. And even if that is NOT his motive, it will clearly be the motive for other people in similar industries. (Just forget about the political need to free the West of its dependence on Mid-East oil.) It hardly matters that Mr. Branson has also promised to invest in green fuels technologies (in his own Virgin Fuels), since that investment is also pure self-interest: he expects a return, and to cash in on popular anxieties.
Sir Branson's challenge certainly tickles the ears, but it is oozing with problems.
Or so it could be argued.
We could always just have people stop exhaling CO2 for half of each day. I mean, six billion CO2 pumps can't be one whit good. Or we could just put gels of algae over every mouth and every exhaust pipe on the planet, or fill the virgin atlantic with those great little creatures. That's it!
Peace.
BG
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All rights reserved.
Sir Richard Branson, music industry icon, billionaire tycoon, owner of an airline -- an ambitious man who has had big oil interests -- has called attention to his deep and generous concern. He wants a cleaner, healthier biosphere. He wants a cooler planet, one with thicker and broader ice caps; with shallower oceans. He wants longer, colder, more difficult winters. And he is willing to give away $25 million to the first person who can keep winter icy-hard.
The AP (and everyone else) reported this weekend that Sir Branson, of Virgin Atlantic Airlines (and Virgin everything else), hopes that his largesse shall spur on competition for a sort of atmospheric scrubber, or a sort of sponge, or a sort of respirator, that will remove harmful levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One can't hardly be more impressed with such a noble call: Sir Branson has tapped into the deep reserves of scientific genius in the hopes of finding a cure for our self-inflicted malady.
That, I believe, is the big global warming story of the day.
But the real story is this, no?
Here we have a man who is heavily invested in the airline industry calling for someone -- anyone -- to bring forward some device or method that expurgates harmful levels of CO2 from the atmosphere. Now, let us imagine that I, of all people, have the answer to Sir Branson's challenge, and that I win his $25 million award; imagine that CO2 gases are indeed reduced, and the earth's atmosphere begins to cool to "normal" temperatures. What would happen?
What would happen is that people would not reduce their use of oil at all; rather, they would increase it. Find the certain cure for cancer and everyone starts smoking. In other words, Sir Branson's challenge is billowing with self-interest. He wants to destroy the effects of carbon-based fuel consumption in order to protect the use of carbon fuels. And even if that is NOT his motive, it will clearly be the motive for other people in similar industries. (Just forget about the political need to free the West of its dependence on Mid-East oil.) It hardly matters that Mr. Branson has also promised to invest in green fuels technologies (in his own Virgin Fuels), since that investment is also pure self-interest: he expects a return, and to cash in on popular anxieties.
Sir Branson's challenge certainly tickles the ears, but it is oozing with problems.
Or so it could be argued.
We could always just have people stop exhaling CO2 for half of each day. I mean, six billion CO2 pumps can't be one whit good. Or we could just put gels of algae over every mouth and every exhaust pipe on the planet, or fill the virgin atlantic with those great little creatures. That's it!
Peace.
BG
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All rights reserved.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Recess For Real
I have said here before that the US Congress should be required by law to have an outdoor recess twice daily. Representatives and senators should be required to seesaw, swing, jump rope, and play dodge ball together. And they should also have to do this. (Wicked fun!!)
God, Bootlegged
On Saturday morning, just before Barack Hussein Obama stepped out from behind the temple veil to reveal his plan to make each of us happier people, MSNBC's Chris Matthews ejaculated that Abraham Lincoln, the great statesman who once governed in Obama's home state, would be dancing for joy at the familiar site of Springfield, Illinois' capitol building; and how it now served as the backdrop to an "African American" announcing his candidacy for the President of the United States. Remember, Matthews gushed, this is where Lincoln said "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Moments later, deep into his own emancipation proclamation -- calling for an end to poverty, promising resolution in Iraq, and freeing us of our fearful dependence on foreign oil and its attendant destruction of the atmosphere -- Mr. Obama said (in bold) this in a list of wondrous deeds Americans have performed as ONE:
"In the face of tyranny, a band of patriots brought an Empire to its knees. In the face of secession, we unified a nation and set the captives free. In the face of Depression, we put people back to work and lifted millions out of poverty. We welcomed immigrants to our shores, we opened railroads to the west, we landed a man on the moon, and we heard a King's call to let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream." [emphasis added]
Of course, the "King" referred to is Martin Luther King, the fallen and iconic civil rights leader.
Perhaps in this age where some do not respect the fences erected around us by the scribes of copyright laws, by the good manners of attribution and the love of one's neighbors' own genius, it is easy to honor the wrong men, the wrong women, even the wrong gods; or to steal for oneself the giftedness of others. Lakes steal from springs and rivers, and rivers abscond with lakes' blue riches, only to find poverty in the sea that robs from the sky as the sky steals back. So great leaders, apparently existing unto themselves where all greatness is apparently shared, are remembered for the great things they have said, even though they did not say them.
Abraham Lincoln may have said, "The house divided against itself cannot stand." And I may have said the same thing in a speech as vice-president of my high school senior class. But I was not quoting Lincoln, and Lincoln was not quoting himself: we were both quoting Jesus Christ the Plagiarized.
And then dear Mr. King, who surely gave the right attribution in his original speech, acknowledging his mentors' gifts to him and their own genius, never did say a thing about "justice rolling down." The Jewish prophet Amos did, a fact Mr. King learned as a Christian in Sunday School.
Clearly Mr. Obama and Chris Matthews have both missed out on these apparent trivialities. Who cares if religious language is stolen for political purposes; who cares if the fullness of genius was found in the prophets who uttered what the world most likely had never before heard? What matters is that it takes a certain amount of genius to plagiarize for political gain; to forget that true justice is rooted in the heart and language of God, and to take His honor for oneself.
(It matters not the source, but the outcome, if you but believe in "destiny.")
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Moments later, deep into his own emancipation proclamation -- calling for an end to poverty, promising resolution in Iraq, and freeing us of our fearful dependence on foreign oil and its attendant destruction of the atmosphere -- Mr. Obama said (in bold) this in a list of wondrous deeds Americans have performed as ONE:
"In the face of tyranny, a band of patriots brought an Empire to its knees. In the face of secession, we unified a nation and set the captives free. In the face of Depression, we put people back to work and lifted millions out of poverty. We welcomed immigrants to our shores, we opened railroads to the west, we landed a man on the moon, and we heard a King's call to let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream." [emphasis added]
Of course, the "King" referred to is Martin Luther King, the fallen and iconic civil rights leader.
Perhaps in this age where some do not respect the fences erected around us by the scribes of copyright laws, by the good manners of attribution and the love of one's neighbors' own genius, it is easy to honor the wrong men, the wrong women, even the wrong gods; or to steal for oneself the giftedness of others. Lakes steal from springs and rivers, and rivers abscond with lakes' blue riches, only to find poverty in the sea that robs from the sky as the sky steals back. So great leaders, apparently existing unto themselves where all greatness is apparently shared, are remembered for the great things they have said, even though they did not say them.
Abraham Lincoln may have said, "The house divided against itself cannot stand." And I may have said the same thing in a speech as vice-president of my high school senior class. But I was not quoting Lincoln, and Lincoln was not quoting himself: we were both quoting Jesus Christ the Plagiarized.
And then dear Mr. King, who surely gave the right attribution in his original speech, acknowledging his mentors' gifts to him and their own genius, never did say a thing about "justice rolling down." The Jewish prophet Amos did, a fact Mr. King learned as a Christian in Sunday School.
Clearly Mr. Obama and Chris Matthews have both missed out on these apparent trivialities. Who cares if religious language is stolen for political purposes; who cares if the fullness of genius was found in the prophets who uttered what the world most likely had never before heard? What matters is that it takes a certain amount of genius to plagiarize for political gain; to forget that true justice is rooted in the heart and language of God, and to take His honor for oneself.
(It matters not the source, but the outcome, if you but believe in "destiny.")
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
There Is No Bias:saiB oN sI erehT
George W. Bush is your worst enemy; we all know that W stands for Warmonger, and that hidden in his first name is a slightly twisted ogre. Bush the Menace.Or so says Newsweek.
Shake your head to clear your eyes, if you must, as you look at Newsweek's newest cover: that is Bush the Bellicose glaring Middle-Eastward, eyes like warheads aimed at the Persian Prince of Peace.
One thing I am certain of is this: that in Iran, Newsweek's headline is not "The Hidden War with Iran." Instead, the Tehran edition is headlined thusly: "The Hidden -- and not so Hidden -- War with America." Wait. No. Scratch that. How foolish of me. Newsweek has it right: 'Tis Bush who has been boasting about his nation's great fate; about the absurdity of the Holocaust and the porcine Jews† who hold the earth enslaved by a mythology that fuels Zionism's many fires. 'Tis Bush who wants to usher in the New Age of the 12th Imam, a caliphate and an Eden somewhere between the Tigris-Euphrates and the edges of the earth. The four angels guarding the ancient gates of Eden are relieved of their weary duty; all through Persia run rivers of gold rhetoric, and there waters are Mahdi: peace is indeed rolling, like the thunder of nuclear detonation. And Bush shall lead us home: he is the Bush that burns with war and never leaves.
Alas, again, I am mistaken, even delirious. My first response to the Newsweek cover was utterly errant. It is not the crazed man to the left who is warring against you, me, the very foundations of Western thought. No, it is Bush. The man on the right. You know, the wrong man on the Right; the Christian Right, all broken and jumbled up, full of petty menace, and all very wrong.
Newsweek and MSNBC, allies under the same Great Peacock, can't expect us to divine -- without their journalistic help -- that Mr. Ahmadinejad, ever speaking in gracious and dulcet tones, is a man of peace with sober eyes and waiting smile.
Perhaps the 12th Imam is that man from Illinois, who has fallen from the sky. His name means "blessed."
Peace.
BG
†This is not to be construed as an anti-Semitic slur on my part. I aim to faithfully and sardonically report Mr. Ahmadinejad's attitude.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Because I Care About Your Joy
I pray that you saw this little video. Enough to make the oldest heart young again.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
And Now The Presentation
"We shall issue in a new birth of freedom on this earth."
Thus concluded Barack Hussein Obama moments ago in his much-anticipated announcement. Talk about audacity!
"We are one people." Indeed.
Consider this a strange observation: Mr. Obama was presented to the temple of his American audience with the music of U2 laving the podium. If there was ever a band that yearns for a messiah, and surely struggles with a messianic impulse itself, it is U2.
Here is Howard Fineman (right now on MSNBC), editor of Newsweek, on Mr. Barack's announcement:
"This is an amazing story. It can't be repeated enough. ... At this point in our history ... this [isn't about just bringing America together], it is about bringing the world together."
And in light of Mr. Obama's multiculturalism, MSNBC's Chris Matthews said,
"To the world this must say, 'America is bigger than we thought.'"
I would point out that Mr. Obama's speech was very similar to an altar call at a Billy Graham tent-meeting: He called his followers to come forward, to follow their destiny, to come together as one people. And that he was hailed into the temple by people holding up his book -- The Audacity of Hope -- a book that looks a lot like a Pope's own volume, is a curiosity one cannot ignore.
He is indeed the savior the Democrats particularly have been praying about: At last, U2 has finally found what they are looking for.
Wow.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Thus concluded Barack Hussein Obama moments ago in his much-anticipated announcement. Talk about audacity!
"We are one people." Indeed.
Consider this a strange observation: Mr. Obama was presented to the temple of his American audience with the music of U2 laving the podium. If there was ever a band that yearns for a messiah, and surely struggles with a messianic impulse itself, it is U2.
Here is Howard Fineman (right now on MSNBC), editor of Newsweek, on Mr. Barack's announcement:
"This is an amazing story. It can't be repeated enough. ... At this point in our history ... this [isn't about just bringing America together], it is about bringing the world together."
And in light of Mr. Obama's multiculturalism, MSNBC's Chris Matthews said,
"To the world this must say, 'America is bigger than we thought.'"
I would point out that Mr. Obama's speech was very similar to an altar call at a Billy Graham tent-meeting: He called his followers to come forward, to follow their destiny, to come together as one people. And that he was hailed into the temple by people holding up his book -- The Audacity of Hope -- a book that looks a lot like a Pope's own volume, is a curiosity one cannot ignore.
He is indeed the savior the Democrats particularly have been praying about: At last, U2 has finally found what they are looking for.
Wow.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Two Annunciations: MSNBC Supports Barack Hussein Obama, And He Is Not Black (or so says someone)
In a matter of minutes from now (30 minutes), Barack Hussein Obama, the handsome and well-spoken senator from Illinois, shall officially announce his candidacy for President of the United States. Assisting him in this proclamation, and no doubt a supporter of his candidacy, is MSNBC, the cable network featuring such notable political wisemen as Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, and Keith Olbermann. My saying that MSNBC is assisting him is due entirely to the fact that MSNBC is hyping its "live coverage" of Mr. Obama's annunciation with undue alacrity at this moment: MSNBC is giddy about this man. Even Mr. Russert's words on an Imus in the Morning program, words replayed during Mr. Russert's testimony in court the other day -- in the Scooter Libby perjury trial -- are perfectly apt: It was "Christmas Eve" in the newsroom when Libby was indicted. No doubt it is Christmas morning today.
Alas, I have proven rather incompetent in my coverage of the Obama story. For I have not properly secured the facts, though, in this digital age of plastic facts, it is not likely that I could ever pin down any fact, for facts vanish in a flash-media second. But please note that on October 24, 2006, in an essay I wrote about Mr. Obama, I noted that his September 2005 essay posted on the Daily Kos, the influential, self-described leftist blog, had as a banner advertisement the following image:
Please note Mr. Obama's placement in this advertisement. Please note that this ad was present at Mr. Obama's Daily Kos essay months before Mr. Obama even announced his exploratory committee for the presidency. Please note that MSNBC not only placed an advertisement for itself on Mr. Obama's Daily Kos diary, but MSNBC placed Mr. Obama's image adjacent to President Bush's, suggesting, perhaps, that both men are in some sort of great struggle. To MSNBC, Obama is a contender, and this MONTHS before he was indeed a contender. Amazingly, MSNBC threw Mr. Obama's hat into the presidential ring before he had himself.
Or so it looks. Or so it feels.
Unfortunately, I only took a screen shot of the actual ad. I failed to take, and preserve, a screen shot of the ad on the actual Obama page. And as you can see, the ad has been removed from Mr. Obama's essay posted, as it was, on the world's largest blog, a blog entirely devoted to political and sociological liberalism.
But who cares, right? This is, after all, the deliverer we are talking about. The great hope. And in just a little less than an hour, there will be a star over the silent little town of Springfield, Illinois. You know, where Abraham Lincoln once lived.
This is all shaping up to be a perfect little fairy tale, the kind America just loves to tell itself.
MY SKIN IS CLEAR (I think)
Curiously related to all of this mythmaking, and jarring our senses, is this essay ("Colorblind") about Mr. Obama (and race in America in general). It is published on Salon. com, and it is written by a "black" woman, Debra J. Dickerson. Perhaps you saw Ms. Dickerson on "The Colbert Report" earlier this week (in a brilliant interview). Ms. Dickerson's thesis, in case you did not know, is that Mr. Obama is NOT BLACK. I kid you not. His mother, apparently, is a white woman from Kansas, while his dad is from Kenya. That Ms. Dickerson defines blackness in political terms is astonishing: to be black in America means, strictly, to be a direct descendant of former African slaves. During Ms. Dickerson's interview with the thoroughly enjoyable Mr. Colbert, she said that Mr. Obama would be better served if he defined himself -- and I am NOT MAKING THIS UP -- as an African African-American. But he is definitely NOT black.
That this woman, who wrote the book, The End of Blackness, is ruining the great idea of a man with dark skin announcing his presidency from Abraham Lincoln's hometown, you know, the town of that great president who clearly made the first great step for the emancipation of slaves so they could become -- eventually -- candidates for President, is a fact too interesting to let pass unnoticed.
But I ask you: if being black is a political-linguistic term denoting only those who are descendants of actual African slaves imported to America, does it NOT FOLLOW that "white" is equally political, denoting only those who have descended from white slaveholders who imported African slaves to America? I think it does. And if that is the case, then, since there were no slaveholders in my ancestral gene pool, I am not white.
There you go then.
I am not white, and Barack Obama, should he become president, will not be America's first black President.
Go figure.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Alas, I have proven rather incompetent in my coverage of the Obama story. For I have not properly secured the facts, though, in this digital age of plastic facts, it is not likely that I could ever pin down any fact, for facts vanish in a flash-media second. But please note that on October 24, 2006, in an essay I wrote about Mr. Obama, I noted that his September 2005 essay posted on the Daily Kos, the influential, self-described leftist blog, had as a banner advertisement the following image:
Please note Mr. Obama's placement in this advertisement. Please note that this ad was present at Mr. Obama's Daily Kos essay months before Mr. Obama even announced his exploratory committee for the presidency. Please note that MSNBC not only placed an advertisement for itself on Mr. Obama's Daily Kos diary, but MSNBC placed Mr. Obama's image adjacent to President Bush's, suggesting, perhaps, that both men are in some sort of great struggle. To MSNBC, Obama is a contender, and this MONTHS before he was indeed a contender. Amazingly, MSNBC threw Mr. Obama's hat into the presidential ring before he had himself.
Or so it looks. Or so it feels.
Unfortunately, I only took a screen shot of the actual ad. I failed to take, and preserve, a screen shot of the ad on the actual Obama page. And as you can see, the ad has been removed from Mr. Obama's essay posted, as it was, on the world's largest blog, a blog entirely devoted to political and sociological liberalism.
But who cares, right? This is, after all, the deliverer we are talking about. The great hope. And in just a little less than an hour, there will be a star over the silent little town of Springfield, Illinois. You know, where Abraham Lincoln once lived.
This is all shaping up to be a perfect little fairy tale, the kind America just loves to tell itself.
MY SKIN IS CLEAR (I think)
Curiously related to all of this mythmaking, and jarring our senses, is this essay ("Colorblind") about Mr. Obama (and race in America in general). It is published on Salon. com, and it is written by a "black" woman, Debra J. Dickerson. Perhaps you saw Ms. Dickerson on "The Colbert Report" earlier this week (in a brilliant interview). Ms. Dickerson's thesis, in case you did not know, is that Mr. Obama is NOT BLACK. I kid you not. His mother, apparently, is a white woman from Kansas, while his dad is from Kenya. That Ms. Dickerson defines blackness in political terms is astonishing: to be black in America means, strictly, to be a direct descendant of former African slaves. During Ms. Dickerson's interview with the thoroughly enjoyable Mr. Colbert, she said that Mr. Obama would be better served if he defined himself -- and I am NOT MAKING THIS UP -- as an African African-American. But he is definitely NOT black.
That this woman, who wrote the book, The End of Blackness, is ruining the great idea of a man with dark skin announcing his presidency from Abraham Lincoln's hometown, you know, the town of that great president who clearly made the first great step for the emancipation of slaves so they could become -- eventually -- candidates for President, is a fact too interesting to let pass unnoticed.
But I ask you: if being black is a political-linguistic term denoting only those who are descendants of actual African slaves imported to America, does it NOT FOLLOW that "white" is equally political, denoting only those who have descended from white slaveholders who imported African slaves to America? I think it does. And if that is the case, then, since there were no slaveholders in my ancestral gene pool, I am not white.
There you go then.
I am not white, and Barack Obama, should he become president, will not be America's first black President.
Go figure.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
¶ Of The Day: Seeing Clearly Through The Radiant Gas
Today's ¶ Of the Day is really but a sentence. But it is a really good sentence.
In Tuesday's Wall Street Journal editorial, "Legal Hot Air" (2.6.07), which discusses, in part, California Attorney General Jerry Brown's intent to sue the auto industry for making cars (that spew greenhouse gases), the editors make this solid point about suing one part of the greenhouse gas-belching industry complex:
In short, there's scarcely any economic activity imaginable that doesn't somehow affect the balance of greenhouse gases, which is why a "nuisance" complaint against any single industry doesn't make sense. It's also why the judiciary has so far wisely refused to get drawn into this kind of game. ...
In any case, as global warming alarmists never tire of reminding us, any serious attempt to control greenhouse gas levels would have to be an international one. [emphasis added]
Amazingly, the Wall Street Journal does not -- apparently -- see what I see in this bold quote; I hope you at least see it, for it is buried right there before our eyes.
What is evident -- even if the most dire predictions of global warming are perfectly true -- is that global warming rhetoric is being used to foment discontent over the idea of separate nation states. In other words, what the WSJ has missed is that this is all about creating one great overseer, one great political monolith: Global warming is so dire we all must work together, now, under one set of rules, and under one enforcing body.
I am surprised I had not seen this before.
Perhaps I do not see as clearly as I believe I do. Of course I don't.
One.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
And all lefts.
In Tuesday's Wall Street Journal editorial, "Legal Hot Air" (2.6.07), which discusses, in part, California Attorney General Jerry Brown's intent to sue the auto industry for making cars (that spew greenhouse gases), the editors make this solid point about suing one part of the greenhouse gas-belching industry complex:
In short, there's scarcely any economic activity imaginable that doesn't somehow affect the balance of greenhouse gases, which is why a "nuisance" complaint against any single industry doesn't make sense. It's also why the judiciary has so far wisely refused to get drawn into this kind of game. ...
In any case, as global warming alarmists never tire of reminding us, any serious attempt to control greenhouse gas levels would have to be an international one. [emphasis added]
Amazingly, the Wall Street Journal does not -- apparently -- see what I see in this bold quote; I hope you at least see it, for it is buried right there before our eyes.
What is evident -- even if the most dire predictions of global warming are perfectly true -- is that global warming rhetoric is being used to foment discontent over the idea of separate nation states. In other words, what the WSJ has missed is that this is all about creating one great overseer, one great political monolith: Global warming is so dire we all must work together, now, under one set of rules, and under one enforcing body.
I am surprised I had not seen this before.
Perhaps I do not see as clearly as I believe I do. Of course I don't.
One.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
And all lefts.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
¶ Of The Day: A Writer's Great Fear
Perhaps it was melancholy that made me read this passage from "The Encyclopedia of Philosophy" last night:
KAIBARA EKKEN (1630 - 1714), or Eiken, Japanese Confucianist influential in popularizing Confucian ethics among ordinary people. Kaibara was born in Fukuoka. ... Blessed with an extraordinary capacity for work but little originality, he wrote on many subjects. ... His books were a great success.
If it wasn't melancholy that led me to Mr. Kaibara Ekken, surely it was melancholy that led me away from him. As Confucius might say, "Man with much bottle but no genie still makes big wind." Or, perhaps, the Great Sage might say, "The artist who is without talent might still become Madonna."
I wonder what readers think Confucius, or the editors of the "Encyclopedia of Philosophy", might say about my legacy.
"If Gnade played football, he would hold press conferences like Peyton Manning, but only after having thrown the pigskin like Rex Grossman."
"Gnade is a bit like a solar eclipse: there is much passing excitement about a cold stone that gets in the way of sheer brilliance. But we're talking total eclipse all day long. It's more nuisance than magic. By the end of the day, we welcome the night sky with great joy."
Ah yes, but he who laughs at himself makes good friend. And very good lover. Or so says Confucius.
Somewhere.
Peace.
BG
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
KAIBARA EKKEN (1630 - 1714), or Eiken, Japanese Confucianist influential in popularizing Confucian ethics among ordinary people. Kaibara was born in Fukuoka. ... Blessed with an extraordinary capacity for work but little originality, he wrote on many subjects. ... His books were a great success.
If it wasn't melancholy that led me to Mr. Kaibara Ekken, surely it was melancholy that led me away from him. As Confucius might say, "Man with much bottle but no genie still makes big wind." Or, perhaps, the Great Sage might say, "The artist who is without talent might still become Madonna."
I wonder what readers think Confucius, or the editors of the "Encyclopedia of Philosophy", might say about my legacy.
"If Gnade played football, he would hold press conferences like Peyton Manning, but only after having thrown the pigskin like Rex Grossman."
"Gnade is a bit like a solar eclipse: there is much passing excitement about a cold stone that gets in the way of sheer brilliance. But we're talking total eclipse all day long. It's more nuisance than magic. By the end of the day, we welcome the night sky with great joy."
Ah yes, but he who laughs at himself makes good friend. And very good lover. Or so says Confucius.
Somewhere.
Peace.
BG
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Bow Your Heads
(I've been away for a few days. 'Tis good to be back.)George W. Bush, you'll recall, has often been chided for his associations with the "religious right". He has been mocked for admitting during the 2000 presidential campaign that his favorite political philosopher was Jesus Christ. He has been ridiculed for revealing that he prays every day that God would guide him to do the right thing; militant Bush critics even believe this revelation is tantamount to the Commander-in-Chief waging a holy war against Islam, all proof that Mr. Bush holds theocratic ambitions.
But darkness descends on the minds of too many men and women, blinded to the overwhelming fact that there is religion aplenty driving those who adhere to liberalism, or who work to transform the world into the image of the Democratic Party. Without question certain "believers" accept the grandiloquent damnations hurled at religious right activism; and without question they shut their minds to religious leftism and other forms of theocratic emanations.
Who is going to stand up to the great and swaggering behemoth which is the Democratic Party as it bowed its head in prayer the other day? Who is going to demand redress of great religious and ideological grievances brought upon Democrats for their unthinking connivance to appear tolerant, devout, and ever so peaceful?
If you have not already done so, please watch this video clip provided for us by HotAir.com of a Muslim imam invoking "god" at the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) Winter Meeting. It is enough to make one's prayer shawl crawl. It is enough to make one daven in disbelief; to genuflect in semi-conscious bewilderment.
Here is a transcript (thanks to Frontpagemag.com) of the whole prayer (the HotAir excerpt is too abridged):
In the name of God the most merciful, the most compassionate. We thank you, God, to bless us among your creations. We thank you, God, to make us as a great nation. We thank you God, to send us your messages through our father Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Muhammad. Through you, God, we unite. So guide us to the right path. The path of the people you bless, not the path of the people you doom. Help us God to liberate and fill this earth with justice and peace and love and equality. And help us to stop the war and violence, and oppression and occupation. Ameen. [Emphasis added]
I am sure we all would agree that it would be wrong for a President of the United States, the Chief Executive of a nation devoted to separation of powers, particularly the separation of Church and State; it would be wrong of that leader to invoke God's "perfect will" in declaring war against a neighbor, all in the name of Christ. Americans recoil at such religious vigor; they expect there to be a "wall of separation" between the State and its many churches.
But I am equally sure that we all must agree -- along with the deconstructionists among us -- that nowhere in the history of America has any founding document called for the erection of a wall between Mosque and State. For it appears, or so it seems, our friends in attendance at the DNC's meeting have no problem sharing the same podium with an imam invoking Allah to guide national affairs; the Mosque is our political friend. All facetiousness aside, we must (must we not?) be perplexed by the sudden Islamophilism of the DNC.
How interesting it is -- or am I wrong about this? -- that the DNC would be of nearly one mind that it is wrong for any leader to seek God's guidance in starting war, and yet it is somehow right for leaders to seek God's guidance in ending war. How interesting it is that the DNC would countenance a prayer by a man asking for exclusive privileges for a certain set of special people, the good people, and that there would be no such privileges on those God has kindly chosen to "doom." And how interesting it is that God should -- with the Democrats' help and Islam's fervent plea -- bring an end to "occupation" and procure "equality" for all.
Ahh, men.
PEACE.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
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