Thursday, December 13, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
SCENIC TULSA: LAND O' FROST
CHILLIN' WITH THE GREAT SPIRIT
WOODWARD PARK, TULSA, OKLAHOMA
More later.
Monday, June 04, 2007
The Counsel of the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was born in 121 CE and became the Emperor of Rome in 161 CE. He was afforded the best education available to an upper class Roman, and followed the Stoic tradition. He spent the majority of his time as Emperor with his legions on the marches of the Empire, putting down revolts and repelling incursions by what today are referred to as "non-state actors." He contracted an infection and died in camp on the Danube in 180 CE.
While on campaign he wrote—in Greek—what have been passed down to us as his "Meditations." In essence, he was keeping a journal in which he collected his thoughts, took notes, wrote down quotes, and so on—today perhaps he would blogging his 'meditations'—or, like me, he would keep a private stash of scribbles, stored, in my case, in a tottering and still growing stack of well-thumbed Moleskine memorandum books.
The Greek title of the Emperor's memorandum book, translated, is "To Himself." In our excitable age Marcus Aurelius is not fashionable reading. He is not flashy. He is not witty, or even funny. He is not the slightest bit interested in irony. Nor in paradox. His insights are not brilliant. There are no epiphanies such as are retailed in the modern genres of the personal spiritual journal, or the solipsistic journalism of the blogosphere. He has no interest in aggrandizing "Himself," after all, he is the Emperor. The odd fact is, in spite of his exalted position, he is a humble man, and often seems to be nagging himself.
All in all, the Emperor sounds like a great, crashing, gloomy bore, doesn't he? The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius was popular, a generation or two ago, as a shelf filler at least, snuggled among the other "Harvard Classics" in a classy uniform binding. It's a short, slim book of no particular theme divided into easily digestible bits—A middlebrow's feast. Hannibal Lector, no middlebrow, quotes the Emperor to Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, so we know the creator of Dr. Lector, Thomas Harris, has read the book.
At this point, the question glistening on your slightly parted lips should be: "Why are you bothering me with this Emperor guy?" I find, like Dr. Lector, that it is well to take counsel of the Emperor. Particularly in these latter days of the American Empire. The truth is, George W. Bush is the man who has driven me to take mental shelter in the yellowed pages of my dog-eared Penguin Classics translation of the Meditations.
Marcus Aurelius was a man who knew something about running an empire in troubled times. He knew every victory was temporary, and that every triumph was hollow. He knew the futility of being the most powerful man alive, and was not unhinged by it. The Emperor says (to himself, as it were),
While on campaign he wrote—in Greek—what have been passed down to us as his "Meditations." In essence, he was keeping a journal in which he collected his thoughts, took notes, wrote down quotes, and so on—today perhaps he would blogging his 'meditations'—or, like me, he would keep a private stash of scribbles, stored, in my case, in a tottering and still growing stack of well-thumbed Moleskine memorandum books.
The Greek title of the Emperor's memorandum book, translated, is "To Himself." In our excitable age Marcus Aurelius is not fashionable reading. He is not flashy. He is not witty, or even funny. He is not the slightest bit interested in irony. Nor in paradox. His insights are not brilliant. There are no epiphanies such as are retailed in the modern genres of the personal spiritual journal, or the solipsistic journalism of the blogosphere. He has no interest in aggrandizing "Himself," after all, he is the Emperor. The odd fact is, in spite of his exalted position, he is a humble man, and often seems to be nagging himself.
All in all, the Emperor sounds like a great, crashing, gloomy bore, doesn't he? The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius was popular, a generation or two ago, as a shelf filler at least, snuggled among the other "Harvard Classics" in a classy uniform binding. It's a short, slim book of no particular theme divided into easily digestible bits—A middlebrow's feast. Hannibal Lector, no middlebrow, quotes the Emperor to Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, so we know the creator of Dr. Lector, Thomas Harris, has read the book.
At this point, the question glistening on your slightly parted lips should be: "Why are you bothering me with this Emperor guy?" I find, like Dr. Lector, that it is well to take counsel of the Emperor. Particularly in these latter days of the American Empire. The truth is, George W. Bush is the man who has driven me to take mental shelter in the yellowed pages of my dog-eared Penguin Classics translation of the Meditations.
Marcus Aurelius was a man who knew something about running an empire in troubled times. He knew every victory was temporary, and that every triumph was hollow. He knew the futility of being the most powerful man alive, and was not unhinged by it. The Emperor says (to himself, as it were),
Begin the morning by saying to yourself, "Today I'm going to meet busy-bodies, the ungrateful, and people who are arrogant, deceitful, envious, and antisocial."
I have seen the nature of the good which is beautiful, and of the bad which is ugly. And realizing that the nature of those who do wrong, that it is within me also, not only of the same blood or seed, but that it shares the same intelligence and the same portion of the sacred—then I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can determine what is ugly within me, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him.
The vices of humanity? Remember the doctrine that all beings are created for one another; that toleration is a part of justice; and that men are not intentional evildoers. Think of the myriad enmities, suspicions, animosities, and conflicts that are now vanished with the dust and ashes of the men who made them and knew them.
If the inward power that rules us be true to Nature, it will always adjust itself readily to the possibilities and opportunities offered by circumstance. It asks for no predeterminate material; in the pursuance of its aims it is willing to compromise; hindrances to its progress are merely converted into matter for its own use. It is like a bonfire mastering a heap of rubbish, assimilating and consuming the fuel, and flaming the higher for it.
Take no enterprise in hand at haphazard, or without regard to the principles of its proper execution.
To pursue the unattainable is insanity, yet the thoughtless can never refrain from doing so.
How is it that souls of no proficiency nor learning are able to confound the adept and the sage? But what soul is truly both adept and sage?
For a human soul, the greatest of self-inflicted wrongs is to make oneself a kind of abscess on the Cosmos; for to be at war with circumstances is always a rebellion against Nature.
Whenever you are outraged by some one's impudence, ask yourself at once, 'Can the world exist with without impudent people?' It cannot; so do not ask for impossibilities. That man is simply one of the shameless whose existence is necessary to the universe. Keep the same thought in mind whenever you meet with the treacherous, the deceitful, or with those who willing to commit any sort of evil act. Remind yourself that the existence of these people is indispensable, and you will become more kindly disposed towards every one individually.
What is wrong, after all, in a boor behaving boorishly? You should blame yourself if you did not expect him to behave that way. You had every reason to suppose that he would do so, and yet you are amazed when he does. When you blame the shameless for having no shame, or the ingrate for being ungrateful, look to yourself, because the error is clearly your own, if you put any faith in the good faith of a man of such dubious disposition.
Once you have given service, what more do you want? Isn't it enough to have obeyed the laws of your own nature, without expecting to be paid for it? That is like the eyes demanding to be paid for seeing, or the feet for walking. For that purpose they exist, and they have their due in doing what they were created to do.
Where life is possible at all, a life of right conduct is possible; life in a palace is possible; therefore even in a palace right conduct is possible.
Every time you feel that harm has been done you, apply the rule, 'If the city (polis, or citystate) is not harmed, I am not harmed.' But if the city is indeed harmed, never rage at the culprit: rather, find out where his vision failed him.
To refrain from doing wrong in imitation of the wrongdoer, is the best revenge.
In a pivotal scene in Thomas Harris' novel, Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling comes to ask the caged Hannibal Lector about the serial killer 'Buffalo Bill.' Dr. Lector tells her that she already has all the information she needs to solve the case, if she is paying attention. He further intimates that if she understood Marcus Aurelius, she might solve the case. She replies,
"Tell me how."
"When you show the odd flash of contextual intelligence, I forget your generation can't read, Clarice. The Emperor counsels simplicity. First Principles. Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its causal nature?"
"That doesn't mean anything to me."
"What does he do, this man you want?"
"He kills—"
"That's incidental. What is the first and principle thing he does, what need does he serve by killing?"
"Anger, social resentment, sexual frus—"
"No."
"What, then?"
"He covets. In fact, he covets being the very thing that you are. It's his nature to covet. How do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet?
"No. We just—"
"No. Precisely so. We begin by coveting what we see every day."
Covet is an old fashioned word not much in use these days; it's one of the shalt-nots in the Ten Commandments, in the King James version, at least. To covet means to harbor a powerful desire for something that doesn't belong to you, to want all of it, every bit of that something, for yourself. So let us return to First Principles: What does he do, this man, this party, that rules? He, and they, like the serial killer Buffalo Bill, covet. They want it all, until it's all used up. That is their nature. Bush and his minions are what Dr. Lector refers to as the 'free-range rude.' He might relish a nice little Filet Minion. To the extent that we share that nature, as well as the 'same portion of the sacred,' we cannot blame them, but, as the Emperor advises, if we are true to our inward power and innate reason, like a bonfire, we can master a pile of rubbish.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Cold Moons
Like a fiddle bow
on a flexed saw
my bones twang.
I rise from the bed
of the woman
of my dearest nightmares
and wake up
beside my wife.
My father walks
out of the cracked mirror
and without a word,
kisses me on the left shoulder:
I wake again,
beside, again , my wife.
How many wakings left to go?
I am no longer a young man.
Seven times seven
are the winters I have seen.
No longer the chosen lamb,
I still dream dreams
but I am not the son of these cold moons.
I never rode with coven
or Joan of Arc
and I never was a fickle one
tho’ all cats are grey
in the dark,
and a coat of many colors
is all black
in the Great House
of Mother Night.
A mercenary not for hire,
an assassin who does not kill,
worth no one's salt,
I take my pay in sand,
sands of sleep and time,
and spend it all
in the precinct of harlots
in the temple of the Crone.
She lays me down to sleep,
drapes me with her cloak
of many daughters,
so that I may be stabbed with sickles of light,
sore afflicted
with a pox of moons,
so that I may walk in other worlds,
in new wrinkles
of laminate verse,
and this is not a sin.
Dana Pattillo, 2007
on a flexed saw
my bones twang.
I rise from the bed
of the woman
of my dearest nightmares
and wake up
beside my wife.
My father walks
out of the cracked mirror
and without a word,
kisses me on the left shoulder:
I wake again,
beside, again , my wife.
How many wakings left to go?
I am no longer a young man.
Seven times seven
are the winters I have seen.
No longer the chosen lamb,
I still dream dreams
but I am not the son of these cold moons.
I never rode with coven
or Joan of Arc
and I never was a fickle one
tho’ all cats are grey
in the dark,
and a coat of many colors
is all black
in the Great House
of Mother Night.
A mercenary not for hire,
an assassin who does not kill,
worth no one's salt,
I take my pay in sand,
sands of sleep and time,
and spend it all
in the precinct of harlots
in the temple of the Crone.
She lays me down to sleep,
drapes me with her cloak
of many daughters,
so that I may be stabbed with sickles of light,
sore afflicted
with a pox of moons,
so that I may walk in other worlds,
in new wrinkles
of laminate verse,
and this is not a sin.
Dana Pattillo, 2007
Not Even Wrong
Wolfgang Pauli, Nobel Prize winning physicist, the Pauli in the Pauli Exclusion Principle, as the tale is told, once succinctly reviewed a young physicist's paper, saying sadly, "That's not right; it's not even wrong." I heard a soundbyte of Bush on the Beeb yesterday, and those three words said themselves to me with my own mouth. Not even wrong. Almost every statement that comes out of Howdy Dubya is so dumb and delusional that his assertions (pre-programed or otherwise) do not even rise to the level of being wrong. Not falsifiable, as Karl Popper put it; not susceptible to proof, because the proposition has no testable hypothesis. The Decider doesn't have a plan or a goal, much less a strategy, he has articles of faith so slippery that they can explain any fact and elude any test.
People speak of framing the debate on the war; that we must change the frame, that is to say, we must alter the rhetoric and metaphors of political discourse in our favor, ala George Lakoff. We must substitute, insinuate, and impose our memes such that we replace the Republican frame with a Democratic frame. That's OK as far as it goes. We are all soldiers on the field of memes. But a frame is just a frame; it may largely and elaborately distract from, subtly direct attention to a particular aspect of, or complement the essence of the picture; but the picture is still the same picture no matter what the frame. It's the same picture if it has no frame at all. And the picture we're looking at is ugly. It's so ugly people can't bear it. We can't face our shame. No one is putting a frame on this picture, we're all putting a good coat of whitewash on the picture so we don't have to look at it. We don't want to look in the mirror and see ourselves as we truly are. Dubya, like Tom Sawyer, is standing by and collecting our treasures one by one, as we each take our turn with the sopping brush.
Every day I listen to NPR and the BBC World Service. I read the blogs, sometimes even WaPo or other MSM. If I pinched myself every time I thought, "I can't believe that Bush is President, it just can't be this bad," I'd be covered with so many welts I could get a job exhibiting myself at a freakshow as "The Pincher." I feel like I am living in some alternate reality, but that hypothesis is not testable.
Another soundbyte that has got a lot of play is John Boehner's tearful
We already got us right where they want us. Some Republican or other, I can't recall who, had the absolute, fatuous arrogance to assert that we will see the light at the end of the tunnel, come September. The conventional riposte is, "Yeah, and it's the headlight of an oncoming train." There is no light. We're groping in black void, hoping to find a wall, and to feel our way to the opening of a tunnel. The tunnel has already left the station.
Follow the tropes.
We have our ass in a crack in Iraq, and Dead Eye Dick is offering Iran the other cheek. The longer we stay, the bigger chunk we leave behind. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda has the Enemas-R-Us franchise. In all seriousness, folks, what we are facing away from is the Crack of Doom. It is too late to do our duty and get off the pot. The situation calls for a crowbar, not a plunger. Congress has handed the Plumber-in-Chief a new plunger; he's already got a fan.
Open a frame shop, invest in Sherwin Williams, pray to the murderous God of Love, if conscience permits; we, as individuals, as a people, as a nation, will not make this right because we can't even make it to wrong.
People speak of framing the debate on the war; that we must change the frame, that is to say, we must alter the rhetoric and metaphors of political discourse in our favor, ala George Lakoff. We must substitute, insinuate, and impose our memes such that we replace the Republican frame with a Democratic frame. That's OK as far as it goes. We are all soldiers on the field of memes. But a frame is just a frame; it may largely and elaborately distract from, subtly direct attention to a particular aspect of, or complement the essence of the picture; but the picture is still the same picture no matter what the frame. It's the same picture if it has no frame at all. And the picture we're looking at is ugly. It's so ugly people can't bear it. We can't face our shame. No one is putting a frame on this picture, we're all putting a good coat of whitewash on the picture so we don't have to look at it. We don't want to look in the mirror and see ourselves as we truly are. Dubya, like Tom Sawyer, is standing by and collecting our treasures one by one, as we each take our turn with the sopping brush.
Every day I listen to NPR and the BBC World Service. I read the blogs, sometimes even WaPo or other MSM. If I pinched myself every time I thought, "I can't believe that Bush is President, it just can't be this bad," I'd be covered with so many welts I could get a job exhibiting myself at a freakshow as "The Pincher." I feel like I am living in some alternate reality, but that hypothesis is not testable.
Another soundbyte that has got a lot of play is John Boehner's tearful
"After 3,000 of our fellow citizens died at the hands of these terrorists, when are we going to stand up and take them on? When are we going to defeat 'em?"That is not the pertinent question. Rather ask, "When are we going to stand down from these people?"
We already got us right where they want us. Some Republican or other, I can't recall who, had the absolute, fatuous arrogance to assert that we will see the light at the end of the tunnel, come September. The conventional riposte is, "Yeah, and it's the headlight of an oncoming train." There is no light. We're groping in black void, hoping to find a wall, and to feel our way to the opening of a tunnel. The tunnel has already left the station.
Follow the tropes.
We have our ass in a crack in Iraq, and Dead Eye Dick is offering Iran the other cheek. The longer we stay, the bigger chunk we leave behind. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda has the Enemas-R-Us franchise. In all seriousness, folks, what we are facing away from is the Crack of Doom. It is too late to do our duty and get off the pot. The situation calls for a crowbar, not a plunger. Congress has handed the Plumber-in-Chief a new plunger; he's already got a fan.
Open a frame shop, invest in Sherwin Williams, pray to the murderous God of Love, if conscience permits; we, as individuals, as a people, as a nation, will not make this right because we can't even make it to wrong.
Well, it's a long, long time
From May to December
But the days grow short,
When you reach September.
And the autumn weather
Turns the leaves to gray
And I haven't got time
For the waiting game.
Music by Kurt Weill,
lyrics by Berthold Brecht,
translated by Maxwell Anderson,
and best sung by Lotte Lenya.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Burning in Heaven
Oscar Wilde said, on hearing of the demise of his nemesis Lord Douglas, "I have no doubt that he is burning in heaven."
Jerry Falwell is dead since the day before yesterday, and he will be dead a long time. That is some consolation. Some. Not much.
A co-worker me told that his wife knew Falwell personally, and when she got the news of his death by cell phone while driving on the expressway, she was so upset she almost had a wreck and had to pull over.
I can't find it in my black heart to feel the slightest bit of sympathy for the bereaved. I couldn't squeeze out even a single crocodile tear if you tied me to a chair and made me watch the PTL Club until I was as mad as Jose Padilla.
On the other hand, I'm not singing and dancing like a Munchkin after Dorothy drops in on the Wicked Witch without leaving the house. Falwell was well past his "pull by" date, but the damage is already done. The man did a truly monumental amount of harm to our country and the planet in the three score and 13 years allotted to him by Fate. I do mourn. I mourn what he did in this life--I mourn that he ever lived.
I have no call to judge him or any other mortal soul, but in all honesty I think the world would be a better place if Jerry Falwell had never been born.
Without Falwell, perhaps, there be no Bush Regime; no Iraq war. There might not be a Supreme Court poised to reverse Roe v. Wade; no Justice Dept. wiping its collective arse with the Bill of Rights. There might not have been long eight years of Reagan.
Falwell was present at the creation, so to speak, of the Christianist movement that has brought us to our present pass. He was one of the first mullahs of the American Taliban. One of the first dominoes to drop. At the very least, there would be no "Moral Majority" and no Liberty U. madrassa training the next gen prayer warriors and lawyers.
The Fascists wouldn't be calling themselves Republicans, the Republicans wouldn't be calling themselves Democrats, and "Liberal" would not be a synonym for "Pariah." I'm not saying that we all would be living in some ecologically balanced people's paradise, absent Falwell--but all by himself he made he made the world a worse place to live in--a much, much worse place.
Now, I believe, Falwell is beyond all reward and punishment. I am glad he's gone. But my--joy--is tempered by my suspicion he is beyond all suffering. I don't believe in an afterlife, heaven, or hell. I wish there was a heaven for him to burn in. I kind of like imagining Rev. Falwell's entry into heaven and his turn before the Judgement Seat in the style of a Jack Chick cartoon tract--in the last panel he'd be makin' like bacon in the skillet of righteousness.
Jerry Falwell is dead since the day before yesterday, and he will be dead a long time. That is some consolation. Some. Not much.
A co-worker me told that his wife knew Falwell personally, and when she got the news of his death by cell phone while driving on the expressway, she was so upset she almost had a wreck and had to pull over.
I can't find it in my black heart to feel the slightest bit of sympathy for the bereaved. I couldn't squeeze out even a single crocodile tear if you tied me to a chair and made me watch the PTL Club until I was as mad as Jose Padilla.
On the other hand, I'm not singing and dancing like a Munchkin after Dorothy drops in on the Wicked Witch without leaving the house. Falwell was well past his "pull by" date, but the damage is already done. The man did a truly monumental amount of harm to our country and the planet in the three score and 13 years allotted to him by Fate. I do mourn. I mourn what he did in this life--I mourn that he ever lived.
I have no call to judge him or any other mortal soul, but in all honesty I think the world would be a better place if Jerry Falwell had never been born.
Without Falwell, perhaps, there be no Bush Regime; no Iraq war. There might not be a Supreme Court poised to reverse Roe v. Wade; no Justice Dept. wiping its collective arse with the Bill of Rights. There might not have been long eight years of Reagan.
Falwell was present at the creation, so to speak, of the Christianist movement that has brought us to our present pass. He was one of the first mullahs of the American Taliban. One of the first dominoes to drop. At the very least, there would be no "Moral Majority" and no Liberty U. madrassa training the next gen prayer warriors and lawyers.
The Fascists wouldn't be calling themselves Republicans, the Republicans wouldn't be calling themselves Democrats, and "Liberal" would not be a synonym for "Pariah." I'm not saying that we all would be living in some ecologically balanced people's paradise, absent Falwell--but all by himself he made he made the world a worse place to live in--a much, much worse place.
Now, I believe, Falwell is beyond all reward and punishment. I am glad he's gone. But my--joy--is tempered by my suspicion he is beyond all suffering. I don't believe in an afterlife, heaven, or hell. I wish there was a heaven for him to burn in. I kind of like imagining Rev. Falwell's entry into heaven and his turn before the Judgement Seat in the style of a Jack Chick cartoon tract--in the last panel he'd be makin' like bacon in the skillet of righteousness.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
AHA!—The Diabolical Canadian Death Poppy
U.S Army "Contractors" travelling in Canada earlier this year filed confidential reports that lead to a Defense Department espionage warning about mysterious coin-like objects with RFDs—radio frequency devices.
According to the Associated Press,
The worried contractors described...the coin-like objects, each marked with a sinister red dot...as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nanotechnology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.
The mysterious coin-like object
"...did not appear to be electronic [analog] in nature or have a power source," wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. "Under high power microscope, it (the red dot) appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire-like mesh suspended on top."
The confidential accounts led to a sensational warning from the Defense Security Service, an agency of the Defense Department, that mysterious coin-like objects with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.
One contractor believed someone had placed two of the mysterious coin-like objects in an outer coat pocket after the contractor had emptied the pocket hours earlier. "Coat pockets were empty that morning and I was keeping all of my coins in a plastic bag in my inner coat pocket," the contractor wrote.
But the Defense Department subsequently acknowledged that it could never substantiate the espionage alarm that it had put out and launched the internal review that turned up the true nature of the mysterious coin-like object.
The true nature of the mysterious coin-like object? It was a 2004 Canadian Quarter adorned with the image of a red poppy, Canada's flower of remembrance, inlaid over a maple leaf. The 25 cent piece commemorated Canada's 117,000 war dead. Approximately 30 million of these coins imprinted with the dread Canadian Death Poppy were struck by the Royal Canadian Mint. The supposed RFD nanotechnology was the coating applied by the mint to keep the coins from losing their scarlet, so to speak.
Numismatist Dennis Pike of Canadian Coin & Currency near Toronto, Ontario, quickly matched a grainy image and physical descriptions of the suspect coins in the contractors' confidential accounts to the 25-cent poppy piece."
It's not uncommon at all," Pike said. He added that the coin's protective coating glows peculiarly under ultraviolet light. "That may have been a little bit suspicious," he said (...after he stopped laughing).
Meanwhile, senior Canadian intelligence officials expressed annoyance (between bouts of hysterical giggling) with the complete lack of intelligence in U.S. intelligence agencies.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
WHAT I DID WHILE I WAS AWAY (1)
I...pontificated...at the wedding of friends Barbara and Randy.Papal vesture (full pope drag) was requested by the bride.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
FOR I AM WITH YOU
All moons, all years, all days, all winds
reach their completion and pass away.
So does blood reach its place of quiet,
as it reaches its power and its throne.
Measured is the time in which we can praise
the splendor of creation.
Measured is the time in which we can know
the blaze and warmth of the sun.
Measured is the time in which
the phalanx of stars will wheel,
and the gods trapped within the stars
watch over us.
BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM
Monday, September 11, 2006
My 9-11
My mother was killed on September 11th—September 11, 1978—28 years ago today. She died a month short of her 46th birthday, two years younger than I am today. “9-ll” has been a grim sort of anniversary for me for long time, you see.
She and my father had borrowed my motorcycle—a 400cc Suzuki—not one of these lifestyle accessory Harleys you see on the streets these days—for a Sunday afternoon jaunt on the lakeside drive a mile or two from our suburban home. I don’t really know whether September 11, 1978 fell on a Sunday, but that’s the feeling of the memory.
I had two helmets, but one of them was in my locker at the trucking company loading dock where I was employed at the time, so neither Mom or Dad took the one that was at the house. That turned out to be a fatal mistake. They were put-putting along at about 25 miles an hour, on a section of the lakeside drive that was part of the original roadbed of Hwy 66, on the north side of the lake.
A man had been sitting by the shore on one of the turn-outs, fishing and drinking, but mostly drinking. I don’t think the fish were biting that day. I don’t know for sure, but that’s what I suspect. This man had already lost his driver’s license due to repeated DUIs, but he had driven his employer’s pick-up to the lake that day. The man got tired of watching slack fishing lines, perhaps, or maybe he ran out of beer. He got in his employer’s truck, and pulled out of the turn-out at the precise moment my parents happened to be passing by on my motorcycle enjoying a fine September afternoon. This is the intersection of fate that resulted in my mother’s death—that, and the intersection of my mother’s helmetless head with the pavement of old Hwy. 66.
Much of the above is conjecture built on fallible memory. I only know what my father told me about it, and he couldn’t bear to tell me much. I don’t know the precise spot where my mother died. I don’t know how fast the drunk in the truck was driving, but I don’t think it was a high speed collision, my dad would not have going as fast as the speed limit, which I believe was 30 mph. Dad came away from the accident with cuts and scrapes. I don’t know how badly my motorcycle was damaged—I never saw it again, because Dad never wanted to see it again. He bought me a car to replace it.
I never met the man who killed my mother. I don’t even know his name, though I must once have known it. He was tried in county court for my mother’s death under a charge of manslaughter; somehow, he was acquitted. I did not attend the trial; I couldn’t bear it. Odds are he’s dead now—a penchant for drunk driving and associated bad behaviors has a way of shortening the lifespan—your own as well as others. Be that as it may, I never sought him out, either for vengeance, or just to know who it was that killed my mother.
I can—have gone—to that lakeshore, watched slack loops of fishing line lean sideways on a breeze, and listen to that same breeze hum on the mouth of an empty beer bottle. I don’t need to know him. I can be that man, that place, that moment just before…as Tess Gallagher wrote, vengeance is a hurt given to the self in the name of another.
The company that had the insurance on the employer’s truck—which, of course, my mother’s killer was not authorized to drive—offered my father a settlement of something like 3500 dollars. Dad sued them, and won a larger amount. Just how much larger an amount it was I don’t know, because Dad is not very chatty when comes to money, and I never asked, but I suspect a couple of zeros were added to the final check.
My memory is not entirely clear on several points. I was deep into a long nap at my parent’s house when my father called from the hospital. I had been living in an apartment with a roommate, a friend from high school. I think I was still living at the apartment, but my friend and I were having a falling out, and that may have been why I was at Mom and Dad’s place that day.
My fourteen year old brother woke me in the midst of a vivid dream, in which I was pursuing a thin but muscular older woman dressed in dark silverish clothing that occasionally glittered. She walked very fast, taking long-legged strides, through the nightscape of a futuristic but ruined city—or cities—and my dream self followed after, never quite catching up with her.
Still caught up in the dream, I heard my father’s voice on the phone, “She’s hurt, she’s hurt real bad…” What Dad didn’t say, what he was probably incapable of saying, was that Mom was dead, probably killed instantly. I held this against my father for a long, long time—very unfair and completely irrational, but I did.
I got my brother and sister into my dad’s van, and drove to the emergency room. I remember very vividly sitting down across from my father in the little waiting room watching his face as he told me, as he admitted to himself, that Mom was dead. It was an extraordinary thing. I watched him age twenty years in less than thirty seconds. My brother went into a sort of walking coma; he didn’t speak for three days.
I asked to see the body. I wanted to see my mother in death, as death had come to her, before the morticians put formaldehyde in her veins and pancake makeup on her face. A nurse took me to a curtained alcove, where my mother’s body lay on the gurney, with a sheet over it. The nurse turned back the sheet from her face and shoulders, and went down the hall a little bit.
Her eyes were closed, bruised black and swollen, from internal hemorrhaging. Tracks of drying blood ran from her ears down the sides of her neck. I don’t remember much if any blood in her dark brown hair; the fatal injury was what is referred to as a “closed head wound.” As I said, she was probably killed almost instantly. I picked her hand, the hand on which she wore her wedding band—it was still warm, the fingers still supple. Not enough time had passed for her body to cool, for rigor mortis to set in. My mother’s body lay there under a white sheet, but there was a vast black hole pulling at me where my mother had been. I stood there a long time, looking, taking it all in, wanting to remember what death looked like.
I lost some part of myself to that black hole; some fraction of my “I” followed after the absence where my mother had been, as if I had lost my shadow to that greater shadow. I did not get my shadow back for a long time. Part of my shadow never came back.
I had to ask the nurse to help me with my mother’s ring. I did not want to leave it on her body. We had use Vaseline to get it off. By that time, my grandmother had arrived in the hospital, and I gave it to her for safe-keeping, because I didn’t think it would be good for Dad to see it right then.
Oh, how I hated the funeral—a Baptist minister who didn’t even know my mom, speaking over her, selling Je-sus over her dead body—Mom looking like a painted doll in the open casket—People trying to be kind—I hated it. I did not wish to be consoled or condoled. The mania that is my inheritance from my mother had been cut loose of its bonds by the grim reaper’s sickle. The crack in my pot became a rift, and on the other side of that rift was the consensus reality where my family and most everyone I knew lived. To say that my mother’s death changed my life is species of litotes so extreme it becomes hyperbole. Like America’s 9-11, it’s not something you “get over.”
No, you don’t get over something like that. I remember the faces in the pictures we saw over and over, of the dust-covered people on the streets of New York on September 11, 2001. Many of those faces twist in the same contortion—can’t call it an expression—that overcame my brother’s face when he heard my father say, “She’s dead.”
Yet today, on what is a grim anniversary for all of us, I listen to the radio and I hear the voices of the President and his men speaking, with nostalgia almost, of 9-11, “a day of national unity.” I hear vainglory and lies served behind pious sentiment; the day and its victims no more than prelude, an introit to a high mass celebrating an endless war against an “Enemy” that “hates Freedom,” appealing to the very same god—the war god, the god who takes sides—for whom the 9-11 hijackers martyred themselves.
I listen to these voices, and a grim anniversary grows grimmer. In the theater of memory I see a preacher in white robes gesticulating over a painted corpse, mouthing empty words.
She and my father had borrowed my motorcycle—a 400cc Suzuki—not one of these lifestyle accessory Harleys you see on the streets these days—for a Sunday afternoon jaunt on the lakeside drive a mile or two from our suburban home. I don’t really know whether September 11, 1978 fell on a Sunday, but that’s the feeling of the memory.
I had two helmets, but one of them was in my locker at the trucking company loading dock where I was employed at the time, so neither Mom or Dad took the one that was at the house. That turned out to be a fatal mistake. They were put-putting along at about 25 miles an hour, on a section of the lakeside drive that was part of the original roadbed of Hwy 66, on the north side of the lake.
A man had been sitting by the shore on one of the turn-outs, fishing and drinking, but mostly drinking. I don’t think the fish were biting that day. I don’t know for sure, but that’s what I suspect. This man had already lost his driver’s license due to repeated DUIs, but he had driven his employer’s pick-up to the lake that day. The man got tired of watching slack fishing lines, perhaps, or maybe he ran out of beer. He got in his employer’s truck, and pulled out of the turn-out at the precise moment my parents happened to be passing by on my motorcycle enjoying a fine September afternoon. This is the intersection of fate that resulted in my mother’s death—that, and the intersection of my mother’s helmetless head with the pavement of old Hwy. 66.
Much of the above is conjecture built on fallible memory. I only know what my father told me about it, and he couldn’t bear to tell me much. I don’t know the precise spot where my mother died. I don’t know how fast the drunk in the truck was driving, but I don’t think it was a high speed collision, my dad would not have going as fast as the speed limit, which I believe was 30 mph. Dad came away from the accident with cuts and scrapes. I don’t know how badly my motorcycle was damaged—I never saw it again, because Dad never wanted to see it again. He bought me a car to replace it.
I never met the man who killed my mother. I don’t even know his name, though I must once have known it. He was tried in county court for my mother’s death under a charge of manslaughter; somehow, he was acquitted. I did not attend the trial; I couldn’t bear it. Odds are he’s dead now—a penchant for drunk driving and associated bad behaviors has a way of shortening the lifespan—your own as well as others. Be that as it may, I never sought him out, either for vengeance, or just to know who it was that killed my mother.
I can—have gone—to that lakeshore, watched slack loops of fishing line lean sideways on a breeze, and listen to that same breeze hum on the mouth of an empty beer bottle. I don’t need to know him. I can be that man, that place, that moment just before…as Tess Gallagher wrote, vengeance is a hurt given to the self in the name of another.
The company that had the insurance on the employer’s truck—which, of course, my mother’s killer was not authorized to drive—offered my father a settlement of something like 3500 dollars. Dad sued them, and won a larger amount. Just how much larger an amount it was I don’t know, because Dad is not very chatty when comes to money, and I never asked, but I suspect a couple of zeros were added to the final check.
My memory is not entirely clear on several points. I was deep into a long nap at my parent’s house when my father called from the hospital. I had been living in an apartment with a roommate, a friend from high school. I think I was still living at the apartment, but my friend and I were having a falling out, and that may have been why I was at Mom and Dad’s place that day.
My fourteen year old brother woke me in the midst of a vivid dream, in which I was pursuing a thin but muscular older woman dressed in dark silverish clothing that occasionally glittered. She walked very fast, taking long-legged strides, through the nightscape of a futuristic but ruined city—or cities—and my dream self followed after, never quite catching up with her.
Still caught up in the dream, I heard my father’s voice on the phone, “She’s hurt, she’s hurt real bad…” What Dad didn’t say, what he was probably incapable of saying, was that Mom was dead, probably killed instantly. I held this against my father for a long, long time—very unfair and completely irrational, but I did.
I got my brother and sister into my dad’s van, and drove to the emergency room. I remember very vividly sitting down across from my father in the little waiting room watching his face as he told me, as he admitted to himself, that Mom was dead. It was an extraordinary thing. I watched him age twenty years in less than thirty seconds. My brother went into a sort of walking coma; he didn’t speak for three days.
I asked to see the body. I wanted to see my mother in death, as death had come to her, before the morticians put formaldehyde in her veins and pancake makeup on her face. A nurse took me to a curtained alcove, where my mother’s body lay on the gurney, with a sheet over it. The nurse turned back the sheet from her face and shoulders, and went down the hall a little bit.
Her eyes were closed, bruised black and swollen, from internal hemorrhaging. Tracks of drying blood ran from her ears down the sides of her neck. I don’t remember much if any blood in her dark brown hair; the fatal injury was what is referred to as a “closed head wound.” As I said, she was probably killed almost instantly. I picked her hand, the hand on which she wore her wedding band—it was still warm, the fingers still supple. Not enough time had passed for her body to cool, for rigor mortis to set in. My mother’s body lay there under a white sheet, but there was a vast black hole pulling at me where my mother had been. I stood there a long time, looking, taking it all in, wanting to remember what death looked like.
I lost some part of myself to that black hole; some fraction of my “I” followed after the absence where my mother had been, as if I had lost my shadow to that greater shadow. I did not get my shadow back for a long time. Part of my shadow never came back.
I had to ask the nurse to help me with my mother’s ring. I did not want to leave it on her body. We had use Vaseline to get it off. By that time, my grandmother had arrived in the hospital, and I gave it to her for safe-keeping, because I didn’t think it would be good for Dad to see it right then.
Oh, how I hated the funeral—a Baptist minister who didn’t even know my mom, speaking over her, selling Je-sus over her dead body—Mom looking like a painted doll in the open casket—People trying to be kind—I hated it. I did not wish to be consoled or condoled. The mania that is my inheritance from my mother had been cut loose of its bonds by the grim reaper’s sickle. The crack in my pot became a rift, and on the other side of that rift was the consensus reality where my family and most everyone I knew lived. To say that my mother’s death changed my life is species of litotes so extreme it becomes hyperbole. Like America’s 9-11, it’s not something you “get over.”
No, you don’t get over something like that. I remember the faces in the pictures we saw over and over, of the dust-covered people on the streets of New York on September 11, 2001. Many of those faces twist in the same contortion—can’t call it an expression—that overcame my brother’s face when he heard my father say, “She’s dead.”
Yet today, on what is a grim anniversary for all of us, I listen to the radio and I hear the voices of the President and his men speaking, with nostalgia almost, of 9-11, “a day of national unity.” I hear vainglory and lies served behind pious sentiment; the day and its victims no more than prelude, an introit to a high mass celebrating an endless war against an “Enemy” that “hates Freedom,” appealing to the very same god—the war god, the god who takes sides—for whom the 9-11 hijackers martyred themselves.
I listen to these voices, and a grim anniversary grows grimmer. In the theater of memory I see a preacher in white robes gesticulating over a painted corpse, mouthing empty words.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Grendel's Lost Sock: Thought for Today
Occam's Razor for Political "Scientists" and Conspiracy Theorists:
Do not succumb to the temptation to explain current events by resort to "a vast conspiracy controlled by a sinister intelligence" when things can be explained by vast incompetence under the misdirection of sinister stupidity.
Do not succumb to the temptation to explain current events by resort to "a vast conspiracy controlled by a sinister intelligence" when things can be explained by vast incompetence under the misdirection of sinister stupidity.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Flarf Poem composed on a Google of “War is not a Time of Joy”
Call President Bush
for quick deployment
of international force.
Uphold the fragile
cease—“The need is urgent,” Bush said,
“War is not a time of joy,
These aren’t joyous times.
These are challenging times,
and they’re difficult times,
and they’re straining the psyche
of our country,”
The President said.
“Sometimes I’m frustrated,
rarely surprised.
Sometimes I’m happy.”
The President said.
I believe the next verse is
“I thought of, this is, you know…
War is not a time of joy.”
Quite the bout of finger-pointing
is underway. Really.
There is absolutely nothing wrong
with being frustrated.
Bush is human. Really.
These are challenging times,
leaving now would be a disaster.
Pullout is impossible. Got that?
“Nobody wants to turn on their TV
on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists."
The President said.
Well, he did say he just finished
the plot against America.
War hurts. I want my Jesus back.
“War is not a time of joy,” he said,
Thrilling linguists everywhere
by speaking an entire English sentence:
The President said,
“Nobody likes
to see innocent people die.”
for quick deployment
of international force.
Uphold the fragile
cease—“The need is urgent,” Bush said,
“War is not a time of joy,
These aren’t joyous times.
These are challenging times,
and they’re difficult times,
and they’re straining the psyche
of our country,”
The President said.
“Sometimes I’m frustrated,
rarely surprised.
Sometimes I’m happy.”
The President said.
I believe the next verse is
“I thought of, this is, you know…
War is not a time of joy.”
Quite the bout of finger-pointing
is underway. Really.
There is absolutely nothing wrong
with being frustrated.
Bush is human. Really.
These are challenging times,
leaving now would be a disaster.
Pullout is impossible. Got that?
“Nobody wants to turn on their TV
on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists."
The President said.
Well, he did say he just finished
the plot against America.
War hurts. I want my Jesus back.
“War is not a time of joy,” he said,
Thrilling linguists everywhere
by speaking an entire English sentence:
The President said,
“Nobody likes
to see innocent people die.”
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Unwinning Wars
Have you ever noticed that whenever America makes war, a war declared in the media and not in Congress, a war against a word, an idea, a state of mind, a condition, or a category of nebulously defined behaviors, substances, or political entities, instead of a war declared and waged against a nation or nations, that these Wars On are conflicts which America never wins, or at least is never the clear victor? That, in fact, these Wars On never really end, though such wars may subside and flare up, are occasionally discretely abandoned by their sponsors, or else we declare victory and withdraw.
There was/is the War on Crime. In America, the main victors in this war are politicians who are “tough on crime” during their election campaigns. Often the criminals join the politicians creating in a “win/win situation.”
There was the War on Poverty, and America certainly did not win that war. Today, under various dog-whistle rubrics such No Child Left Behind, and Welfare Reform America wages an undeclared War on the Poor.
There was/is the War on Drugs; did America win that war? We just say no to the drug-du-jour, and when next year’s model hits the streets it always seems to be more noxious, more addictive, and more destructive to society than the last drug “scourge.” However, this crusade, like the War on Crime, is a perennial winner for politicians and for the drug businessman too, on the whole.
For a long time, America fought a War on Communism, aka the Cold War; to my mind better called the Hot-and-Cold War. Some say we won that war, around the time the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell. But both North Korea and Vietnam, “Communist” states to which we served up piping-hot war in the midst of the Cold War, still have “Communist” governments run by the same basic set of people that were in charge when we were making war on them.
We went to the brink of the hottest of hot wars during the episode known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and since maintained a simmering enmity against the “Communist” regime of Fidel Castro. Yet nearly a half century later we are still waiting for Fidel to just fall down and not get up. The most populous nation on Earth, China, has a “Communist” government run by the same ruling class for almost 70 years. China and its present day ruling class are more powerful than the Imperial dynasties of old. Even in most of the territories of the former Soviet Union, the same ruling class, more or less, is in charge, where there is anybody is in charge; the rich are richer, the poor poorer. Did America really win the so-called Cold War?
For the past few years now, America has waged the War on Terror. How terrified do we, the people, have to be, before our own ruling class can call it a win? How many of our freedoms will we give up before we will surrender the least of our comforts, or give up the strangely comforting fear itself? How many countries must be laid waste, how far must “Democracy” be spread, before the “Terrorist” bogeyman can be retired? How many people have to die before the President the United States of America can declare final victory?
There was/is the War on Crime. In America, the main victors in this war are politicians who are “tough on crime” during their election campaigns. Often the criminals join the politicians creating in a “win/win situation.”
There was the War on Poverty, and America certainly did not win that war. Today, under various dog-whistle rubrics such No Child Left Behind, and Welfare Reform America wages an undeclared War on the Poor.
There was/is the War on Drugs; did America win that war? We just say no to the drug-du-jour, and when next year’s model hits the streets it always seems to be more noxious, more addictive, and more destructive to society than the last drug “scourge.” However, this crusade, like the War on Crime, is a perennial winner for politicians and for the drug businessman too, on the whole.
For a long time, America fought a War on Communism, aka the Cold War; to my mind better called the Hot-and-Cold War. Some say we won that war, around the time the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell. But both North Korea and Vietnam, “Communist” states to which we served up piping-hot war in the midst of the Cold War, still have “Communist” governments run by the same basic set of people that were in charge when we were making war on them.
We went to the brink of the hottest of hot wars during the episode known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and since maintained a simmering enmity against the “Communist” regime of Fidel Castro. Yet nearly a half century later we are still waiting for Fidel to just fall down and not get up. The most populous nation on Earth, China, has a “Communist” government run by the same ruling class for almost 70 years. China and its present day ruling class are more powerful than the Imperial dynasties of old. Even in most of the territories of the former Soviet Union, the same ruling class, more or less, is in charge, where there is anybody is in charge; the rich are richer, the poor poorer. Did America really win the so-called Cold War?
For the past few years now, America has waged the War on Terror. How terrified do we, the people, have to be, before our own ruling class can call it a win? How many of our freedoms will we give up before we will surrender the least of our comforts, or give up the strangely comforting fear itself? How many countries must be laid waste, how far must “Democracy” be spread, before the “Terrorist” bogeyman can be retired? How many people have to die before the President the United States of America can declare final victory?
Saturday, August 19, 2006
To “Sir” With Something Other Than Love
Open Letter to George W. Bush: Just Shut Up
Sir:
I take strong exception to your remarks on the recent court decision by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor that declared your warrantless wiretap program illegal and unconstitutional. I take particularly strong exception, sir, to your opinion that people who oppose your abuse of the office of President in this (or any other matter)
“…do not understand the nature of the world in which we live."
I think that the people that oppose your regime most avidly understand quite well the nature of the world we live in, and your large and regrettable part in making that world much worse that what it could be. You, sir, understand nothing; you are a liar; a thief; a murderer; and a tyrant, and in all your endeavors ultimately a failure and an incompetent. The truth is not in you, sir. God does not speak to you; or if he does, you’re not listening.
You, sir, have embroiled the United States of America in an undeclared, illegal, and apparently endless war, spent the treasure and the reputation our country, the lives of our soldiers, and the lives of countless innocent civilians on the basis of constantly mutating justifications and in pursuit of ever-shifting goals that recede like the flickering waters of a desert mirage. Virtually every decision you and your advisors have made in prosecuting this war against “ter-rism” has not only been wrong, but wrong-headed and self-deluded as well. You, sir, have condoned, encouraged, incited, and on numerous occasions ordered the commission of war crimes. You, sir, though you have never dirtied yourself with the blood of an enemy—make that “enemy combantant”—are a war criminal, and I dare say, if you were not the President of the United States, you would by now be facing charges in the dock at the Hague.
In the course of waging this so-called “War on Terror,” which is better named the “War to Terrify,” you, sir, have converted the constitutional democracy of which you are the chief steward into a proto-fascist state. For the sake of your war games, you, sir, have mortgaged the future of our children, and bid fair to wreck our country, and perhaps accelerate a world wide collapse of human and natural systems in a planetary disaster.
You, sir, are the one who does not understand the nature of the world we live in.
You, sir, in the words of Sha Zukang, the Chinese Ambassador to the U.N. at Geneva, should “shut up.” Shut up and be quiet.
It is better for you to shut up and keep quiet. It's much, much better.
Sir:
I take strong exception to your remarks on the recent court decision by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor that declared your warrantless wiretap program illegal and unconstitutional. I take particularly strong exception, sir, to your opinion that people who oppose your abuse of the office of President in this (or any other matter)
“…do not understand the nature of the world in which we live."
I think that the people that oppose your regime most avidly understand quite well the nature of the world we live in, and your large and regrettable part in making that world much worse that what it could be. You, sir, understand nothing; you are a liar; a thief; a murderer; and a tyrant, and in all your endeavors ultimately a failure and an incompetent. The truth is not in you, sir. God does not speak to you; or if he does, you’re not listening.
You, sir, have embroiled the United States of America in an undeclared, illegal, and apparently endless war, spent the treasure and the reputation our country, the lives of our soldiers, and the lives of countless innocent civilians on the basis of constantly mutating justifications and in pursuit of ever-shifting goals that recede like the flickering waters of a desert mirage. Virtually every decision you and your advisors have made in prosecuting this war against “ter-rism” has not only been wrong, but wrong-headed and self-deluded as well. You, sir, have condoned, encouraged, incited, and on numerous occasions ordered the commission of war crimes. You, sir, though you have never dirtied yourself with the blood of an enemy—make that “enemy combantant”—are a war criminal, and I dare say, if you were not the President of the United States, you would by now be facing charges in the dock at the Hague.
In the course of waging this so-called “War on Terror,” which is better named the “War to Terrify,” you, sir, have converted the constitutional democracy of which you are the chief steward into a proto-fascist state. For the sake of your war games, you, sir, have mortgaged the future of our children, and bid fair to wreck our country, and perhaps accelerate a world wide collapse of human and natural systems in a planetary disaster.
You, sir, are the one who does not understand the nature of the world we live in.
You, sir, in the words of Sha Zukang, the Chinese Ambassador to the U.N. at Geneva, should “shut up.” Shut up and be quiet.
It is better for you to shut up and keep quiet. It's much, much better.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Grendel's Lost Sock: Quote for Today
"In a world full of excrable excresences, there is always a fetid coprostatis of an idea to make your own."
Ned Seeman
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Liquid Terror and the Scent of Fear
In light of the roll out of “Liquid Terror” and its effect on the airlines and airports of the world, Dr. Omed has a suggestion as to how to simplify and improve airport security. Check all baggage. Instead of the current security checkpoints, airline passengers should be checked onto the airport concourse in the same way that prisoners are checked into a county jail.
In dressing rooms under the supervision of security guards, passengers would strip, submit to a cavity search, and their clothes, wallets, purses, ids, pocket change, and what-not would be bagged, tagged, examined for contraband, and checked for transshipment.
Passengers would be issued color-coded jumpsuits or hospital scrub type pajamas, and flip-flops or slip-on tennis shoes. At some county jails, prisoners charged with misdemeanors get an orange jump-suit, and felons get white. Or vice versa. First class passengers get, say, purple, and every one else gets orange. Every passenger would get a coded wristband like a patient gets at the hospital or an inmate gets at the jail, that can’t be removed without scissors or a knife.
The passenger section of the plane would be behind a locked gate, like the prison bus, with an armed steward or stewardess on the other side of it, keeping an eye on everyone with the help of surveillance cams. Passengers seatbelts can be locked by remote control, but you could slip on the complementary handcuffs, if you’re into that. And in each and every barf bag, there would a complementary stale baloney sandwich, just like you get at a city jail. Beats a bag of peanuts, don’t it?
Air travel in the Age of Fear is already replete with restraints and indiginities. Think how glad you’ll be to get off that plane, when you are arrive at your destination, to get your own clothes and personal items back, to have that wristband snipped off, to step out into the open and take a big breath of fresh air. You’ll feel so free. For a moment, anyway. Just don’t make any suspicious moves, until you’re out of range of the cameras and the sniper towers.
In dressing rooms under the supervision of security guards, passengers would strip, submit to a cavity search, and their clothes, wallets, purses, ids, pocket change, and what-not would be bagged, tagged, examined for contraband, and checked for transshipment.
Passengers would be issued color-coded jumpsuits or hospital scrub type pajamas, and flip-flops or slip-on tennis shoes. At some county jails, prisoners charged with misdemeanors get an orange jump-suit, and felons get white. Or vice versa. First class passengers get, say, purple, and every one else gets orange. Every passenger would get a coded wristband like a patient gets at the hospital or an inmate gets at the jail, that can’t be removed without scissors or a knife.
The passenger section of the plane would be behind a locked gate, like the prison bus, with an armed steward or stewardess on the other side of it, keeping an eye on everyone with the help of surveillance cams. Passengers seatbelts can be locked by remote control, but you could slip on the complementary handcuffs, if you’re into that. And in each and every barf bag, there would a complementary stale baloney sandwich, just like you get at a city jail. Beats a bag of peanuts, don’t it?
Air travel in the Age of Fear is already replete with restraints and indiginities. Think how glad you’ll be to get off that plane, when you are arrive at your destination, to get your own clothes and personal items back, to have that wristband snipped off, to step out into the open and take a big breath of fresh air. You’ll feel so free. For a moment, anyway. Just don’t make any suspicious moves, until you’re out of range of the cameras and the sniper towers.
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