Any of you guys ever read Chita? It’s a superb novel by Lafcadio Hearn…and I LOVE the author’s name almost as much as I love his book! If I made it up in a story, EVERYBODY would consider it far too off-the-wall to believe, but he was REAL…even lived in New Orleans for a while…where he learned about the destruction of Isle Derniere during a hurricane in the 1800′s and wrote about it. That’s where things get TANGIBLE and kind of spooky for me because I’ve BEEN there…to Isle Derniere…or more accurately what’s left of it, just spitting distance from dad’s favorite oyster beds when I was growing up.
Now only a few pilings and boards scattered among the palmettos, with maybe a HINT of a pier here and there, a gently sloping beach, and a lot of high, dry ground where a magnificent summer hotel once stood, it was a favorite retreat for people from New Orleans in those days, bathed by sea breezes, lavishly Victorian, and free from “Yellow Jack,” which we know as Yellow Fever. New Orleans has ALWAYS had problems that way, cloistered as it is between two bodies of water and completely vulnerable to miasma breeding and buzzing in the shallows.
If you want to lose yourselves in the horror of those times, watch “Jezebel,” one of my favorite Bette Davis movies, even though I didn’t really care for her concept of a Louisiana accent…more like Georgia, and for that matter, the scenes they depicted of New Orleans, too…but they got the idea across: antebellum, lavish, and VULNERABLE. I guess they were trying to establish a MOOD, but when Henry Fonda slapped that mosquito on his neck, EVERYBODY knew. Above the Yellow Jack line or no, he had CAUGHT it, and he was one dead puppy.
Most people don’t get this, but in the last few scenes when Bette is acting up a storm in a cart rattling over cobblestones toward Lazaret Island…which doesn’t exist…there are NO islands in the Mississippi around New Orleans…there were always NUNS in the wagons, nuns with big, fancy hats…and that’s accurate, too. The Daughters of Charity took care of those people at great personal risk and significant mortality to its members, and TO THIS DAY, they ride free on any New Orleans public transportation…as thanks from a grateful city.
The rest of it is also accurate, like those cannons firing sulphur into the air, stupid though it may seem. Those poor people didn’t have a CLUE about what was REALLY going on, but that didn’t stop the politicians and medical hacks from ordering the army to do things like that. They were wrong, of course, but they were DESPERATE; what else could they have done? Voodoo? Prayer in St. Louis Cathedral? They did all of it…everything they could think of, but the disease still got to them because if could FLY.
Poor New Orleans, Yellow Jack wasn’t its only disease problem; there were LOTS of others…like CHOLERA, and one poor, innocent bastard wound up crushed by both the disease and history. You see, if you’ve had cholera, you’re usually IMMUNE to re-infection, so when an epidemic hit, the guys who had it before were enlisted to stay and help the others…while the rest of them fled, usually to places like Isle Derniere. One of those staying behind was a minister, who in his quiet hours before sleep began plotting the new cases on a map of the city.
In time he realized something. Cholera seemed to follow WATER, and he made the big mistake of writing an article about it in the local newspaper. While he was only trying to help, the doctors in New Orleans POUNCED on him, demanding a retraction, and in time he printed one…poor fool, poor intuitive, brilliant fool. He was RIGHT, but that didn’t stop the establishment. I’ve read his announcement, and it’s heartbreaking. How do you reach back in time and tell a guy like that he was right and the rest of them were WRONG?
Not much later, some guy in England made the same connection, and HE’S considered the visionary…not our poor minister. I can’t help wondering…I’m a PHYSICIAN novelist, after all…what would I have done? Told them to BOIL their water, for sure, and to drain their swamps, told medical personnel to WASH their hands after every patient encounter, told cholera vicitms to drink a lot of water with salt in it, but doctors in those days were a stupid bunch…and VERY poorly trained. They’d probably have run me out of town on a rail, most likely tarred and feathered.
These days New Orleans is free from cholera and Yellow Jack, but you can just bet they’re still out there…waiting patiently in swamps surrounding the city for something to unleash them. In the old days people spoke a lot about malaria, even patients much later when I was practicing medicine, and I don’t see why it couldn’t have happened, same swamps and all…but these days all the cases New Orleans sees are imported, much like the few cases of cholera they had a couple of decades ago.
Of course, they had the usual problems, viral infections, pneumonia and infected wounds, just like we have today, but non-infectious causes of death were also common, most prominently including childbirth, accidents…life was tough in those days…and cooks burning to death in the kitchen. At one time, immolating cooks outnumbered childbirth deaths, and it makes sense if you think about how they cooked…on open hearths…while wearing MOUNTAINS of lacy undergarments. One well-placed spark or cinder and the cook went up like a Roman candle.
The people at Isle Derniere all drowned, of course, and that was common in those days. Not many people were effective swimmers, particularly considering the way they dressed. That’s actually STILL TRUE in the great Atchafalaya Basin. I’m always ASTOUNDED by how many of those trappers and fishermen don’t know how to swim…or even dog-paddle, and every now and then one of them falls in…and people say, “Well, he drowned…fell out of the boat.” FELL OUT OF THE BOAT? Hell, we used to DIVE out of boats when we were water skiing. Take some swimming lessons, Guys; you won’t regret it.
Sorting through all this makes me even happier to be living in the 21st century than I was before. Life is tough enough without the deck stacked against you…like it was in those days. I’ve never seen the statistics, but I’ll just BET there were a lot of food-borne illnesses, too…no refrigeration, easy for staph, shigella, or salmonella to get a toe-hold and bring you down. A word about staph food poisoning…as a physician, I saw a lot of cases, and the thing I remember most was when we had identified the infected food item, the patient always said, “But it was DELICIOUS!” No wonder we had so many infecitons; it seems staph tastes GOOD.
In the old days, death was always close by, sometimes only inches away in the kitchen, and EVERYBODY lost a child or two during a lifetime. There was nothing to do about it, so they went on with their lives, not perfectly, some might say not even in a civilized fashion, but they did persevere and left us an odd mixture of good and bad, as I suspect most forebears do. For one, I’m grateful they did, leaving us the Louisiana we have today…filled with promise and hope, free from cholera, Yellow Jack, dead mothers and infants, and with MUCH safer cooking…but there’s STILL one sticking point.
The old guys cleared the land…or more precisely, their plantation workers did…and we’ve built on it…in more ways than one. Normal life here no longer has the sting of unexpected illness and death, but at a truly TERRIBLE cost to humanity…and yes, I’m talking about SLAVERY. I’ll never understand how those cultured, sophistocated people considered it reasonable to go to Africa, link human beings into an iron chain, and work them nearly to death in their cotton fields. Slavery was…and ALWAYS will be a MONSTROUS evil…horrible, and damned…not just a human illness, a societal one.
Slaves died, too, from overwork, from illnesses, from childbirth, and from despair, but NOBODY has statistics on them. They DIDN’T COUNT…non-entities to those white folks behind the columns who only worried about the cotton crop, the latest fashions, and whether food arrived hot at the table. If those old guys could speak to us, they’d expect us to be grateful for what they endured for our sake and they’re right…up to a point, but thank God, modern sensibilities have kicked in to put things into perspective.
I’ve read the Civil War journals of BOTH Mary Chestnut and Sarah Morgan…several times. My copy of Mary’s journal is almost falling apart, and the take-away lesson is THEY KNEW SLAVERY WAS WRONG and did absolutely nothing to change things…didn’t even like to talk about it. Most of them were scrupulously religious…and not a little superstitious. I wonder why they didn’t see Yellow Jack, cholera, death in childbirth and all the rest as Divine retribution for their demonic traffic in human misery. Personally, I don’t think God sends death and destruction, but he DOES send tests…to help each of us learn EXACTLY who he is. Unfortunately, they failed theirs flat.
So…Old Guys…the way I see it, the best you can hope for from us is a WASH, whatever horrors you endured…and even there, the odds are iffy.

We were planning to go to Galveston for a week, a long, HOT trip for the dogs, so I decided to have Angel clipped to a “summer cut.” She’s been groomed so many times I didn’t really worry about it and went to help my cousin with her computer after I dropped her off, but I kept my celphone with me…just in case. Nobody called, so when I got home and my lady’s wet eyes told me there had been a problem, I was STUNNED. I mean…grooming? How many problems could there be?
Turns out it was a bad one. When the groomer-lady was working on her face, Angel suddenly jerked and the clippers SPLIT her lower eyelid, producing pain, fear, and a lot of blood. Before we get any further, I have to say that lady has done a BEAUTIFUL job many, many times before. She’s compassionate and devoted to the animals in her care…so I don’t blame her. It was an ACCIDENT, but by the time I was brought into the picture, Angel was ALREADY in surgery! Angel…my Angel…in SURGERY…it tore me up…and I didn’t really know what to do.
I mean…Angel, my SPECIAL friend? We’ve shared so many walks together, so much time in the evening, our souls touching and meshing perfectly. My God, Angel…surely Lord, NOT HER! The vet did a beautiful job; I know…I checked it carefully, but he sent her home in a “cone of shame,” which she HATED. He called it an Elizabethan collar, a huge, horrible thing she could barely carry around, but all I could see within it were her sad little eyes…one traumatized, asking me, begging me to tell her what she had done wrong…and I could do nothing but weep.
When she saw how much it was hurting me and my dog, my lady IMMEDIATELY took that damnable thing off…and Angel drank, ate, and happily ran outside to do her “business”. Since then, we’ve watched her obscessively, but she doesn’t even seem to know there’s anything wrong with her right eye. Now, our only problem is Baxter, who constantly wants to play with her. I keep slapping a rolled-up newspaper in my hand (which he’s TERRIFIED of) to remind him, and so far at least he seems to be getting the message.
Of course, I called the lady at By the Sea Condos in Galveston, and told her about our misfortune. There’s NO WAY we could go, but you know what? She was WONDERFUL about it all and happily rescheduled our vacation. I discussed the situation with Angel and my lady, and we decided to leave all the bags, cases, and what not in the parlor…just like we were leaving tomorrow. Somehow, that makes the whole thing less painful to all of us…except maybe Baxter, who’s OBLIVIOUS to almost everything going on at home.
The funny thing is Angel’s all worried about ME. She knows I’m upset and has NEVER been more compassionate or supporting, quietly following me around and when I’m sitting in my chair in the den, jumping up and covering me with those wonderful, slobbery kisses. My morning ritual is to crack open a Starbuck’s Frappuccino, gather up the morning paper, and watch the news on TV, and as always, Angel is right there with me, usually tucked at the edge of the lounger peaceful and happy. It’s strange, but even Baxter seems to understand we need that time together more than ever right now.
My lady and I are WRECKS, while Angel seems to think nothing much has happened, but guilt is hard to dodge.  Dogs are so pure, so innocent, and so trusting. I HATE it when what we do to try and make them more comfortable hurts them…like I EVER thought it might, but just now, I feel like I owe Angel much more than a walk in the gathering twilight.
I owe her an apology…for trying to help her and failing, for HURTING her, however inadverdently, but I can easily see what Angel thinks about all this…lounging at home with the people she loves, comfortable, happy, and free from that collar…cut eye be damned! She forgives me…it’s obvious…if she EVER blamed me…which I doubt. I just wish I could forgive myself.

UPDATE 8-25-11  I’m feeling better about things.  Young as he is, Baxter seems to understand what’s going  on, while Angel still seems to have no idea there’s something wrong with her right eye.  To tell the truth, it’s hard to tell where the repair was, and I’m planning to bring the torture collar back to the vet tomorrow.  Today in the bedroom we watched Julia Child, whom we ALL love, on the Cooking Channel…with the AC and ceiling fan going full blast, Angel at the foot of the bed in her usual place, Baxter in the crook of my arm, and my lady next to me.  I went to sleep (not a whole lot interested in what the French have to say about pizza), and when I woke up, Angel was still there, and Baxter, and my lady, all waiting for the final “This is Julia Child. Bon Appetit!”  Now, I know we’re all going to survive this and have a WONDERFUL vacation in Galveston in September, with Angel barking at waves and retreating when they come crashing in, eyes alert and bright as always, and Baxter probably digging TONS of sand somewhere, but most of all I need to thank God…for helping a lovely and complete innocent heal…and for showing me what’s REALLY important in the end.

Final Update 09-02-11  Today Angel got her stitches out, and I gotta say.  The vet, Dr. Richard Broussard, did a PHENOMENAL job!  You can’t even SEE where the cut was…and I KNOW; I studied her eye through his magnifier.  I was in there when he anesthetized her, and it kind of got to me, watching her like that…all limp with her tongue stuck out, my Angel, my friend who was harmed only because I wanted to make her more comfortable.  Of course, I asked him whether the anesthesia might suppress her breathing, but he said it wouldn’t…and he was right.  When I went to pick her up, the tech said, “She’s STILL pretty groggy; it may take a couple of hours before she’s normal,” but when she saw me, she jumped into my arms, curled up and started kissing me.   And when she got home, she ate, drank, and went outside to do her thing, then came back with me into my man-space computer room…where she slept it off at my feet.  At this point I don’t REALLY know exactly how I feel about all this.  I feel guilty, of course, but she IS more comfortable, though TERRIFIED now about going to the vet.  The funny thing is…she doesn’t really seem to CARE about any of it…just an inconsequential hiccup…at least to HER.  She’s still my Angel, my friend, and she still loves me.

A Painting by a Friend of Mine in Med School

I went to medical school when I was nineteen, and I’ll never forget my first night in New Orleans. A Cajun from the hinterlands alone in an immense city for the first time in his life, I found a fire escape in one corner of my apartment building and stood there eight stories up trying to make sense of the lights, sounds and smells attacking me from every angle, so different from the simple quiet peace I had grown up in and held dear.
Having lived in a small town all my life and attending college in Lafayette, which is really just a big small town at heart, I was POSITIVE I’d never adjust, a lost stranger in a confusing foreign land. Just getting anywhere involved a major effort, the city a seemingly endless patchwork of angled streets, expressways, and overpasses, so I took to riding busses and streetcars, knowing full well if I got lost I could get on another one going the other way.
I had a car, an old Dodge with about 300,000 miles on it, but my father absolutely FORBADE me to take it to New Orleans. At the time I resented his order because it condemned me to riding public transportation or walking, but in time I had to grudgingly agree with him. My car wouldn’t have lasted very long, nor was it very reliable, and I’d probably have gotten so lost I’d have to abandon it anyway and get on a bus just to find my way back.
I think walking served me best. An avid jogger, I had the legs and often walked all the way to the French Quarter, a good twenty blocks, and ultimately found an Italian short-order restaurant serving the best meatball po-boys I’ve ever had in my life. Not only that…the owner’s wife was one of the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen…and she LOVED medical students. Sitting there munching on my sandwich, sometimes with a glass of Chianti, and enjoying the scenery, I slowly began to realize there actually WERE worthwhile things in New Orleans.

A Painting of Cajun Life by Earl Hebert, A Superb Local Artist

Back home, they never said New Orleans; it was always The City, like there was only ONE in the world, and It took me a long time to understand how right they were. New Orleans gradually became THE CITY to me, too…and I hadn’t even seen Mardi Gras yet. At Christmas time I went back home, and dad presented me with a new car, a small Ford. Powder blue, good gas mileage, brand new…God, it was beautiful! By then, as he no doubt knew I would, I had learned the city pretty well from my walks and city transit rides, and I could pretty much get where I wanted to without using a map…although I always kept one handy in the glove box.
I used to play tennis at City Park and grew to love the quiet water, the lilies, and the moss-laden oaks, just as I loved the tree-lined streets and avenues getting there. At this point, I HAVE to share a little story with you. It may not seem like all that big a deal to you sophistocates, but to a guy from the boonies, it was HUGE. I was in pretty good shape…not overdone…functional, and I worked hard to keep things that way. Of course, to the city guys I was a clueless bumpkin, which…to tell the truth…I WAS, but one day all that changed.
There were a lot of airline flight attendants in our apartment building, and all the guys were ENDLESSLY trying to attract their attention. I didn’t blame them; they were GORGEOUS, but as an outsider to city life, I knew better than to try and follow their example. One day when I was returning from a hard-fought tennis match…all sweaty and dishevelled, standing with a bunch of med-school guys waiting for an elevator, one of the stewardesses walked up to me…ME SPECIFICALLY! Thank You, God, for that little kindness.
Shoving a piece of paper into my pocket, she said, “I want your BODY…anytime…anywhere…any way you like! Call me,” but it was her misfortune to have propositioned me the month we were studying venereal diseases…so I did NOTHING. Okay, maybe I treasured that phone number for a couple of years, but I knew when I was outclassed…and who knows who that lady had slept with? Venereal diseases can be scary…and embarassing…and damaging…and hard to get rid of. Med student…REMEMBER?
Thank God I had the presence of mind to answer, “Sounds like fun, but right now I got a few exams to worry about before I can call you.” She smiled, stroked my unshaven chin, blew me a kiss, and floated into the snack shop, but the good news about that story is my stock soared through the roof inside the med school. I could tell from their sly looks and smiles; they KNEW I was a player…which I knew I absolutely WASN’T, but apparently it looked good enough to fool THEM.
I think I got a testosterone kick out of that encounter. At any rate, the sky seemed more beautiful, the air sweeter, and the environment much less threatening, and in time I became very comfortable in the city I’d live in for ten years. Of course, each year, everything turned topsy-turvy when Mardi Gras hit. To those who haven’t been there, it’s hard to explain; the whole city goes kind of crazy…happy crazy. The parades begin, and people who are normally staid and respectable find themselves willing to KILL to recover a handful of worthless glass beads.
My first Mardi Gras, I had a date with a New Orleans native, a lovely girl, usually quite proper, but when we got to the parade route, she suddenly said, “A LITTLE GIRL IN A WHEELCHAIR! Let’s stand next to her; they gonna throw a lot of beads her way!” We stood where she suggested, and sure enough, they threw BUSHELS of beads. When we were leaving, my date asked, “Where are your beads?” “I gave them to the little girl in the wheelchair,” I answered, to which she responded, “Are you crazy?” That’s Mardi Gras in a nutshell…mass insanity with no concept of reality.
In time…when I became a resident…I lived on Nashville Avenue when I wasn’t at the hospital, and I think that experience gave me my most enduring memories of New Orleans. I remember getting up on a crisp Sunday morning and walking to the corner where a cart held mountains of fruit fresh from the docks, other Sundays sitting outdoors at a breakfast place enjoying the best food you could imagine with wonderful chickory coffee to wash it down.
Eventually, I had to give up jogging…just didn’t have time for it, but I craved some sort of exercise and decided to get a bicycle. I loved riding through neighborhoods or along the river road and sometimes on top of the levee. One day, I was happily pedaling along when a gigantic ship passed me in the canal between the levees. Stunned, I stopped and watched it go by, towering above me, then I looked at the neat subdivision about thirty feet below on the other side and became strangely uneasy. The city of wonder was protected from massive flooding only by simple, earthen levees and huge, constantly active pumping stations. It was living on the EDGE!
A lot of the wonder is gone now. New Orleans no longer SPARKLES like it used to; Katrina saw to that, making real the threat I had sensed that day on my ride. Watching the destruction of my city from our den in Lafayette, comfortable and safe, I WEPT, and my lady understood because she had lived there, too, until we got married. The sad fact is that we lived in a beautiful place when it was at its prime, numbered among the last to taste its irrepressible joy. They’ll repair and rebuild, of course, but to someone like me who soaked it all in when the city was whole, it won’t REALLY be the same.
You see, I LOVED that city, from the flambeaux carriers in parades, to the guy who sold the best hot dogs imaginable on a carefully chosen corner, to the perfume of night-blooming jasmine on summer evenings, to the smell of coffee everywhere in the morning, to the incredible spectacle of a Mardi Gras ball, through the bitter sting of cold air in November, all the way to those wonderful people, black and white, who gave it life.  I loved New Orleans; she was EASY to love, but these days, when I think of her, I always think of a King Alphonse.  You could get one in any bar on Bourbon Street…coffee liqueur with cream on top, dark liquid mixed with white, tumbling and swirling in its little glass…just like New Orleans…endlessly active, stirring, and enchanting…brash, quiet, sweet, bitter, and loud…staid, irreverent, tacky, and tasteful…but gone much too quickly, leaving only evanescent memories.

When we’re very young, our world revolves around the concept of ME, what I want, what I like, NEVER what I need…curbed only by the superior wisdom and physical strenth of our parents. Different kids move out of that phase at profoundly different rates, producing a spectrum of evolving awareness that the REAL world is all about give and take…if I do this for you, will you do that for me? And once attained, it remains the hallmark of all MATURE individuals.
Of course, some children never grow out of the self-indulgent stage, carrying on like a baby throughout their lives, and they’re called BRATS. You see a lot of them these days…in their formative stages…in movies, at the mall, and my favorite, at the supermarket. The other day I saw a kid pick a piece of bubble gum out of a bin and tear it open. His mother carefully looked up and down the aisle before she quickly re-wrapped it and returned it to the bin, leading me to decide today’s “permissive parenting” has skewed demographics in their favor.
If I’m right, there are going to be a lot more of them gumming up the works everywhere, and I feel sorry for those nascent brats because it’s a rough row to hoe in the long run. For the most part, society is INTOLERANT of such behavior, and when they grow up, they endlessly run into stone walls in their relationships, their work, and their lives in general. A few get the message, but most of them just keep banging away, never really understanding why people don’t like them or why they never ever seem to succeed.
My concept of raising children is keeping them alive until they get good sense, but what if they never do…you know…get good sense? From watching the antics of congress this past few weeks, I’ve decided most of those run for political office. It’s incredible, but what ELSE am I to think? What happened to give and take? You never lose that way of dealing with the world once you attain it, so I’ve decided those guys in Washington never had it. In a word, our government is run by BRATS, self-indulgent, hopelessly self-centered, totally immature BRATS!
Believe what you will, but the concept of COMPROMISE is anathema to those brats in Washington. Interaction to them is YOU giving ME what I want, not me giving you something to arrive at a common goal. They don’t think at that level. It’s as alien to them as the deadest language on the planet, and if I were you, I wouldn’t hope for some glimmer of inspiration to change them. They’re INCAPABLE of it…once a brat, always a brat. At least, that’s been my experience so far.
“He who knows and knows that he knows is a leader. Follow him.”
“He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Awaken him”
“He who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant. Teach him.”
“He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him.”
My quandry is…how do you shun an ENTIRE branch of government? Just exposing them does nothing; they’re PROUD of their bratty shenanigans. We have the interesting problem of having seasoned and mature individuals on the outside and powerful but ugly brats on the inside calling the shots. I’m hoping some of them are only FAKING brattiness, but I agree…it’s a long shot.
Somebody over there has got to realize you can’t play CHICKEN with a country, but I’m beginning to think the only way to bring sanity to Washington is to winnow them out as quickly as we can. Keep electing new people, I say, and if they turn out to be brats, kick them out next time and try again. If they are mature and responsible, keep them in, but if they start getting bratty urges, turn them out, too. I know it may take at least four or five generations to give reason and maturity a fighting chance up there, but right now, that’s the only dim light I can see at the end of this tunnel.
If NEITHER political party is capable of producing a true statesman, let’s give them an unending round of musical chairs to see if we can at least attract their attention, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high. Brats think they should ALWAYS win…no concept of compromise…remember? They’ll only think we’re being jealous, or cruel, or stupid. When you ACTUALLY believe you’re the center of the universe, why would you think anything else? Thank you, permissive, self-centered parents.
We live on the only inhabitable planet in our solar system and in a country I believe to be the best hope for mankind, created by the tolerance, wit, intellect and wisdom of noble GIANTS. Yes, we’re fractious, multicultural, a little xenophobic, often confused and torn, and some of us the descendents of slaveholders, but overall, the roadmap they left us has worked out pretty well in the long run…after a few disagreements like the Civil War, which I personally consider just and formative.
The way I see it, too many good people have given their blood to see that this country succeeds and prospers, way too many, but it can again…if we can figure out how to get rid of those who don’t understand what’s REALLY screwing us up. Shakespeare said, “First, we have to kill all the lawyers,” but I say, “Don’t kill anybody…just get rid of the BRATS. For God’s sake, give us a fighting chance!”

We got none…clear enough? We got POLITICIANS…who really only want to get re-elected, and that puzzled me for a long time. I mean, when they’re stumping around begging for money and votes, they always talk about the country and what they want to do for it, but when they finally crawl into the marble halls of power, they kind of get hypnotized. I think it takes only a couple of ritzy cocktail parties cocooned in all the priviledge they enjoy to convince them that somehow they’re SPECIAL, stratospherically above the rest of us proles.
And they LIKE it; who wouldn’t? It’s all wrapped up in the power corrupts thing. After they get to the Nirvana of democracy, they grow fingernails and imbed themselves into the nearest marble column. Got a flash for you dreamers. After they slide their asses into those soft, cushioned seats of power, they don’t give a damn about what WE want, but they give a BIG DAMN about what they want. Napoleon started it…reach and grab…reach and grab, but where does it leave the rest of us?
Frustrated, mostly. We work hard, balance our budgets, make sacrifices, and live within our means…we have to…but they DON’T. They promise EVERYTHING to EVERYBODY, and usually make those promises good when they can, even if they have to do it with borrowed money, TRILLIONS of dollars of it. A dollar is 6.12 inches long. I tried to calculate how long a train of a trillion dollars would be, but my calculator maxed out. IT’S A BIG NUMBER, probably enough to go to the moon and back a couple of times, and that’s just one trillion. We’re working on FOURTEEN TRILLION!
I keep wondering about it. Don’t those guys pay their bills? Don’t they KNOW you have to? What the hell is going on over there? I’ve decided most of those guys are fueled by fantasy, or illusion, or maybe alcohol. It sure as hell isn’t reality. Take Social Security, for example. People PAID into that system…all their lives. They sort of saw it as a contract, and now they’re being told the government may not give them what they’ve earned…and in most cases what they NEED to survive.
And what about people working now? Why should they pay through the nose for a program they’ll NEVER benefit from? I’m a writer. I live from day to day, but if I was working, I’d think twice about paying stuff to the government I knew I’d never get back. It would be like pissing in the wind. Of course, those marble-hall people only see it as reliable income they can splurge with, waste, and NEVER be held accountable for.
I heard a really great quote from Margaret Thatcher the other day. She said, “Socialism is great…until you run out of OTHER people’s money,” and that’s where we seem to be…out of other people’s money…your money, my money, your cousin’s money, your yard man’s money, your checkout lady’s money, your parent’s money, EVERYBODY’S money…except for those idiots clinging to the marble halls on the Potomac.
Lincoln bucked a lot of people, but he had a VISION…and it proved to be the right one. He went on until John Wilkes stopped him, but when I look around these days, I can’t find anyone like him who seems to be able to look beyond the immediate present and plan for the indefinite future. I find it funny how they ALL keep quoting Reagan over there. I liked Reagan, liked Clinton, too, because they TOOK CHARGE and did good things for our country.
And as I see it, that’s a big part of the problem. The people in charge these days seem to be the pollsters. Before making any move, every damned one of them seems to check it out first to see how it might impact them in the next election. I know their lives are cushy and will be secure forever, but why do they do it? To STAY there…they like that life and those cocktail parties, that exposure on TV, and they LOVE enhancing their cherished concept that they’re better than the rest of us. They’re modern-day gods while we’re DIRT.
Nowadays, that’s all they seem to think about…getting re-elected, and it looks like they’re willing to sacrifice the country to do it. I got tired of phone calls from political parties begging for money…and my vote, so I changed my registration to INDEPENDENT. After all, I’m about as independent as you can be, and now when they call, I tell them proudly. After a few stutters, they always hang up, which is exactly what I had in mind, and I gotta tell you. It makes suppertime a lot more pleasant.
That’ll work for me as long as I can AFFORD supper. The way things are going these days, it may not be long before I’ll be fondly remembering those times before the great fall, those times when I could still grill a steak or bake a chicken to give my family something nourishing to eat. When our dollars can’t buy piss, when we are hunkering down in abject poverty, when we’re all wondering where it all went, those guys will be living a live of luxury. They’re like that.
They’re POLITICIANS…lapping up whatever dregs they can in a world CRYING for people who can rise above temptation and the seduction of power, crying for STATESMEN. Give up, America because they ain’t there, and the way things are going, I don’t think they’ll ever be. Face it; we’re screwed.

Like most of the people I know, I watched the trial of Casey Anthony with a mixture of horror and fascination. Of course, she was acquitted of all the major charges, based…as I understand it…on the lack of cold, hard evidence, and I tend to agree. The prosecution failed to prove a crime had been committed, but I haven’t been able to shed the raw, empty feeling that somehow, something went WRONG here.
People are quickly making signs and pouring into Orlando to voice their objection, and when interviewed, they always say, “We want JUSTICE for Caylee.” I think we all do, just like I sometimes think the prosecution may have been so blinded by their desire to punish Casey they tended to overlook the fact that they were also our only hope of justice for a sweet little dead child. Maybe they DID reach too far. Maybe less than Murder 1 would have found more success.
Now, they’re celebrities, the attorneys…on BOTH SIDES, racing from one TV show to another…which I see as inevitable…part of the messy aftermath built into high-profile, media-enhanced trials like this, but somehow like a lot of people, I still feel like something TERRIBLE has gone unaddressed, something evil or possibly even insane. It’s that WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED part I find so slippery, so hard to keep a grip on…or to wrap my mind around.
A child died, and we don’t know why, or how, or even whether it was intentional or accidental…I’m pretty sure it wasn’t suicide…but instead of treating her with love and respect, her little body was thrown into a swamp as food for scavengers. We do know WHEN she died…a month before ANYBODY brought in the authorities, and that point causes me the most discomfort. That “Bella Vita” lady was computer-savvy, and it wouldn’t be too hard to Google the internet and find out how long it might take for a decomposing body to lose ANY traceable path…particularly back to her.
And that’s another point I find confusing. I know on TV they keep saying CSI is fantasy…no REAL case is that neat or conclusive, but archaeologists were able to pinpoint the EXACT circumstances and nature of Tutankhamun’s death…THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. And they’re saying thirty days erased EVERYTHING? EVERYTHING? I find that a little hard to swallow. Maybe they should have had an archaeologist on their forensic staff, but they didn’t…so we have to examine the BEHAVIOR of those closest to the little girl when she died.
Who the hell sits on a dead child for a month…and WHY? Who the hell wraps it in plastic and dumps it into a swamp instead of notifying the authorities and calling a funeral home…and WHY? What the hell was going on? That WHY thing keeps getting in the way because it sure looks to me like SOMEBODY was working like hell on some sort of plan, and sure as hell, like that same somebody was trying to COVER something up. Notice how many times I used the word HELL? It’s my clumsy attempt at subliminal imprinting…because I believe that’s where this twisted sort of behavior oozes from. It sounds SO like him, God’s eternal adversary.
Satan be damned; let us crawl toward truth. To deny the validity of the verdict is also to deny the rule of law, our only REAL protection. We can’t jettison the best we have simply because we don’t agree with it, even though THIS TIME it left us with that awful feeling. That should be…and has been made stridently clear. We don’t like the way it all went down, but we ACCEPT it because we’re civilized and live in a country governed by law rather than morality, evil’s edge. Morality has given us the Spanish Inquisition, innocents at the stake, and the Salem witch trials; personally, I’ll take LAW anyday.
Face it; we’ll NEVER know what really happened. Who’s going to tell us? The mother who was convicted on four counts of lying? The parents who are either as much in the dark as we, or torn between the tragic choice of siding with their daughter or their granddaughter? No, this one’s going to remain a mystery, but don’t worry; there’ll be lots of theories…and even more conspiracy-buff and tell-all books to keep it alive in our collective memory forever.
The way I see it, civilization is layered. Up top, things are bright, clean, and shiny…and any minute a cartoon bluebird wrapped in melody might land on your shoulder. A delightful illusion, but moving deeper, things get darker…and murkier…and far harder to understand, and at the bottom, the darkest part where civilization’s underbelly rips apart over nothingness, we find the least comfort and reassurance…because there be demons…and insanity…and evil…and death…oh, yes, and lawers. Lawyers seem to THRIVE in that void, take to it like ducks to water, even though it’s COMPLETELY alien to the rest of us. I’ve never understood that difference.
The little girl didn’t just get up one morning and decide to die. Something or somebody killed her, and whoever knows what went down isn’t ABOUT to tell us, which leaves the rest of us tormented, confused, outraged, powerless…and increasingly ANGRY. I understand that anger because I feel it, too, and HATE the thought that I can do nothing to change what happened, what’s going on, or what’s likely to happen from here. We bluebird people, it turns out, while good, noble, and loving, aren’t really up to the challenge of facing true evil, DEMONIC evil. We live happily and quietly most of the time and when we confront it, haven’t the slightest idea what we should ACTUALLY do.
It’s incredibly frustrating, but to tell the truth, I don’t believe we can do ANYTHING. It’s gone much too far beyond our capacity to modify. I don’t know what the rest of you are thinking, but I’ve decided the only course I have left is to leave it to God. He’s good at this sort of thing, and I trust Him, always have…my Rock when my back is up against the wall. Who knows what else might be in that blackness? Evil, certainly…and insanity, and peversion, and manipulative court procedure, and lawyers, and sociopathic thinking, and irresponsible press, and all the rest of Pandora’s foul escapees.
It’s dangerous down there where the belly meets the void, no place for normal human beings with feelings…and fears, and personally, I believe God is the only one who can really deal with it, far better at battling demons than I could EVER be. So, I’ve decided to leave it to Him. He’ll know what to do…and while He’s working all this out, I’m planning to get on with the rest of my life. As a Christian, that thought gives me comfort, but I feel sorry for the athiests out there. I guess they’ll just have to stay pissed…and make signs…and yell forever. I think my way’s better.

I’m sure you know it; I’ve told you before. I grew up in St. Martinville, an incredibly tiny South Louisiana town…a dot…on any map anywhere…including GPS and other high-tech stuff, but I’m glad I did. For me at least, that little dot was crammed to overflowing with wonders and life-changing experiences. I tend to feel sorry for kids growing up in cities…when I see them in movies or when we’re traveling. Life seens so terribly complicated for them…and not nearly as peaceful as our tree-lined streets, our quaint old homes, our history, and our quiet sidewalks where everybody knew everybody else.
Of course, when I was growing up, sometimes that was a problem. If you were misbehaving ANYWHERE in town, the nearest adult corrected you, and when you got home, there was hell to pay. And then, there was the “children should be seen and not heard” philosophy, to which every mother and father devoutly adhered. Well familiar with it, when visitors came, we said hello then VANISHED, but it became an insurmountable problem whenever we went to visit as a family because we had no place to escape to.
Not only that, if it was winter, mom always chose to put us boys in WOOL suits, itchy, scratchy, HORRIBLE wool suits, complete with white shirts and ties. The girls always had soft, pretty, non-itchy stuff, but not us. We didn’t mind the shirts and ties all that much, but the wool was UNBEARABLE! Of course, the people we went to visit always had the temperature set at broiling, which sort of slowly cooked us. We weren’t ALLOWED to sweat, but I got to tell you; it wasn’t easy. For a long time I chose to believe it was a form of torture my parents had devised…particularly when I noticed dad didn’t have one wool suit to his name.
When I left home, I swore I would NEVER wear wool again. I had outgrown my old horror and bought a spiffy tan linen suit for summer, but one Christmas mom and dad gave my brother and me very special presents…more WOOL SUITS…mine was dark green…GREEN…would you believe? My plan had been to wear my light suit for summer stuff, and jeans, thick shirts, boots, and jackets in the winter. I knew I wasn’t going to be invited anywhere fussy, so people could either take me the way I was…or never invite me again. I was resolute.
But it turned out I had to wear it one time…ONE TIME! Forced to attend a university function in the middle of winter…and wear a suit, I had no other option, and it was exactly as I remembered: itchy, scratchy, miserable, and suffocating once I came in from the cold. Somehow, my parents never acknowledged the existance of central heating…EVER…even though they had it at home, and I began to rethink the TORTURE scenario. I have no idea where that green suit is today…lost somewhere along the line, I guess…but TOTALLY unmourned.

Another memory of my life in St. Martinville has to be the Boy Scouts. I made friends in that organization I’ve cherished ever since and had some truly spectacular adventures. Ours was one of the most gung-ho scoutmasters in the universe, and I can’t help remembering one PARTICULAR weekend campout. It started out well enough…even though the weather seemed a bit iffy. By that point, we devoutly trusted our dominant leader…if he said everything was going to be OK, we gleefully accepted it. We were BOYS…what else can I say?
Anyway, we set our campsite up in perfect little squares…four tents each, just like he wanted, but when I started digging our fire pit, it began to rain. My tentmate, Richard, and I retreated into our tent, but then it also began to blow…REALLY HARD. Pretty soon, it became a pattern…a hard blow, then yells as tents came flying up off the ground. Richard and I laughed and watched the tumult…until OUR tent began to rise up around our knees and tent-pegs began to pop.
Ignoring our tent flying up into the treetops and points beyond, we retreated to our scoutmaster’s INCREDIBLY reinforced area, a tarp tightly hung between four trees with a campstove, a lantern, a cot, and a flapping sleeping bag desperately trying to join the tents above. “Don’t worry, Boys, it’ll blow over,” he said. BLOW OVER? WHEN? By now we could see the trees bending into at least sixty-degree arcs. “Want some cocoa?” he asked. “It’ll blow over.”
We said no and huddled together in the wind and sideways rain until frantic parents roared in to rescue us. “IT’S A HURRICANE,” they yelled. “It’s been on TV for three days! What the hell are you doing out here?” A good question, I must admit. As boys, of course, we NEVER watched weather stuff on TV, and I began to realize our scoutmaster didn’t either. We gathered up whatever belongings hadn’t blown off and rode back to town in comfort and safety, but seven tents were never recovered. The way I figure it, they wound up somewhere around Alexandria and are probably now part of a different scout troop.
I was mad at the scoutmaster for a long time after that, and WHENEVER we went camping, I watched the weather news for days before…but that was our one and only hurricane. I DO remember camping in Catahoula near the levee defining the Atchafalaya Basin. Usually late at night before we went to sleep, he always INSISTED we take a hike along the levee…but never on the road at the top…instead through grass near the water. Sometimes we sang, striding along OBLIVIOUS to the danger surrounding us.
Today, not for love or money would I walk down there during the day, much less at night. How none of us were ever bitten by a cottonmouth is a mystery I will contemplate for the rest of my life, but I gotta admit. It was FUN! God protects fools and drunks, I guess. In time, I grew up…by then a Star Scout. When I quit, they kept telling me I should go on and make Eagle, but to tell the truth, I saw it all as a BOY’S thing…and I was on the threshold of manhood…so I said no.
When I left home for good, I didn’t realize I was leaving so much behind; it took me maybe ten years to understand, but by then I lived in New Orleans, with its charm, history, excitement, and the allure of sophistocated and beautiful women. One Mardi Gras at an uncharactistically horrid party I met my lady. Bored as I was, as any NORMAL human being would have been, I saw her standing there…also bored…but GORGEOUS and sophistocated as hell, and I knew God had decided to smile on me that evening. I can still remember how easily she snatched a dubloon out of the air one night at a parade…while deep down she could also be comfortable in so tiny a place as St. Martinville…when we visited…which, to tell the truth, wasn’t all that often.
I know a lot of people consider growing up in a town like St. Martinville stultifying, but in reality it was LIBERATING, in an unexpected, frustrating, sometimes frightening kind of way. When things happened in those days, they felt more like ADVENTURES…and became experiences I’ve treasured ever since. Never actually harmed, never truly left vulnerable, I was STIMULATED and prodded to new and more glorious adventures. When my lady and I had lunch with Richard a few months ago, we all laughed about those days and understood how good they were…unbelievably unorthodox, but good.
He died recently, our old scoutmaster. Of course, I went to his wake to honor him, just like I’ve been to a lot of wakes and funerals for people who meant something special to me when I was growning up, but like dad, our scoutmaster always stands out. Neither EVER stopped pushing me on or seemed to care the tiniest bit how difficult what they were suggesting might be, and I thank them for it. It wound up wonderful. I KNOW dad loved me and was always trying to make my life better, but I have NO IDEA what my scoutmaster thought.
Maybe he was just a crazy son-of-a bitch…or possibly only a rare, joyful spirit who didn’t give a crap about weather reports on TV…or anything else. Sleep well, both of you. The way I see it, you’ve earned it, and I’ll never stop thanking either of you. When I was young, I didn’t really realize it, but now I know. Growing up in a small town wasn’t the least bit dull…or boring…or limiting…or even safe…but formative…and WONDERFUL!
So, I say thank God…for America and her small towns…and the incredible experiences they offer so freely…even if you don’t understand what the hell’s going on at the time. By the way, I STILL watch the weather news every night…even though my lady doesn’t really have the slightest idea why I’m doing it so intently.

Guys, I’m THRILLED about how many of you like my blog, but I have more than 3000 comments right now…and that’s too many. I’m sorry, but I have to thin them out a bit. Right now, my plan is to keep about 1000, and if I delete you, I sincerely apologize. If it means a lot to you, comment again, but we ALWAYS have to remember people who don’t have a ton of memory on their devices…and they deserve a chance, too. AC

I subscribe to the Teche News, a truly enjoyable weekly newspaper from St. Martinville, where I grew up, and this week there was an amazingly interesting letter to the editor in it, complete with graphs. The author, M. L. Broussard, pointed out that these periods of global warming are cyclical, with rapid rises and slower falls, as demonstrated in Antarctic and Greenland ice cores. People used those same ice cores to measure CO2 levels in tiny bubbles trapped inside the ice, giving us a good idea of past warming periods…and greenhouse gases.
The interesting thing is that rising CO2 levels FOLLOWED global warming periods by more than two hundred years…some calculate about a thousand, and his conclusion is that the warming is cyclical and unrelated to that much maligned gas. You see, when it gets hot and the oceans heat up, they release CO2 because it’s much less soluble in warming sea water. That scenario makes sense to me, but the last time Earth warmed, there were a LOT fewer people…and NO internal combustion engines. SURELY, they add to the problem, maybe not the primary cause, but at least an aggravant.
Up to then, I thought it was all CO2, but these concepts have broadened my perspective. I still firmly believe we should try to produce less of it, even if it’s only to MITIGATE the extent and duration of global warming, which I suspect is based on the sun’s activity or some other cosmic factor, but to assume we CAUSED it all may be taking a little too much credit. Earth’s climate history has been one of endless swings, from warm and lush to frigid and spare, tropical alternating with ice ages, but we should really think about what we KNOW about some of those warm periods. That’s the part I’m stuck on…and those poor dinosaurs.
They lived in one of the tropical, warm periods and were most likely done in by an asteroid hitting what is now the Yucatan, Chicxulub. That’s all very interesting, but I can’t help thinking about the central part of North America, what is today the great plains. They were UNDERWATER in what’s always described as a shallow…but vast…inland sea in those days, at least partly the reason they’re so fertile today.
Think about it…water all the way from the Gulf of Mexico, which was a much larger ocean then, to Canada. God knows how many people live on land that was sea floor when dinosaurs did their thing, and what about costal cities? All of ours would be underwater, including New York City…yes, it’s a costal city, too. Of course, the rise would be gradual, and at first, I bet people put up one humongous battle to keep the salt water out. But in the end, people now enjoying our seashores will have to move inland…or drown.
You see, whether this is cyclical and part of nature’s pattern or man-made…or both, it pretty much looks like it’s ACTUALLY happening. I think the tree-huggers, among which I number myself, are wrong, and this is actually part of a pattern. True, we may be aggravating it, accellerating it, as it were, but I believe even if we didn’t produce ONE MOLECULE of CO2, it would still keep on happening. It’s where we are on the geologic curve of climate history that’s the real thorn in our collective paw.

Mr. Broussard made another interesting point. He thinks WATER VAPOR is the ultimate greenhouse gas, not CO2, and he used a sort of thought experiment to make his point…deserts. Desert days are, of course, hellishly hot, but the nights are really COLD. I remember that first-hand from my military time in El Paso; it was FREEZING at night. Why? If CO2 is the demon it’s been made out to be, nights should be warm in desert areas because the concentration doesn’t change at night. We should all be cloaked in our immense greenhouse, still sweating.
But we’re not, and the author is right; the only possible variable you can point to is water vapor, which is almost non-existent in desert areas. The sun warms the place up during the day, and at night, with no warming sun and no water vapor to wrap us in warmth, the temperature plummets…while the CO2 level doesn’t change a whit from night to day. I’m not saying it doesn’t participate; I’m saying…to me, at least…it just doesn’t seem like the major player we’ve been led to believe it is.
The hardest thing in life is dealing with a situation over which you have NO CONTROL…powerless to change what’s going on. I know; believe me…been there lots of times myself when I practiced medicine…incredibly frustrating, but the funny thing is you don’t just stand there and say, “Oh, my God! I can’t do ANYTHING!” Instead, you work your ass off, trying one thing after another, innovating, thinking outside the box, expending every ounce of energy you possess. It’s a DO SOMETHING moment.
At times like those, a lot of people IGNORE the consuming problem, focusing instead on something they actually CAN change…even if it’s irrelevant, and to be honest, I think a lot of that’s going on these days in global warming discussions and projected doomsday scenarios. I don’t laugh at those people…like I said…been there too often myself to do anything that vacuuous. I listen and sometimes even go along with them, particularly if what they’re proposing seems reasonable, and that’s pretty much how I feel about our “carbon footprint.”
You gotta understand. To me living in a Cajun cabin with a garden out back, a couple of cows, a chicken coop, a trusty dog, a good woman, a stone hearth, natural ventilation, candles at night, and maybe gumbo once a week made with chickens you’re raised is just about as close to Heaven as you could get…but I know it’s completely impossible. This Cajun lives in the twenty-first century and sees his dream existance only in museums or crumbling in two-hundred year old houses in out-of-the-way places on seldom traveled dirt roads. I’ve GOT to face this…no other choice, so I’m doing it.
Reducing emissions that HELP the sun and Mother Earth in their clock-like cycle of warming and cooling is a GOOD IDEA, no matter how you look at it, but in my heart, I think we’re only chipping away at a tiny part of what’s trying to consume us. Cosmic forces are going to have their way because NONE of us is big enough to deter any of them. I know it makes us feel better to try, so I say, “Go for it”…but I’m afraid we’re only whistling past the graveyard this time.
If Mr. Broussard is right…and we’ll never know, will we? We’ll all be dead and buried LONG before the answer is known. Actually, I don’t plan to be buried but incinerated and scattered somewhere so plants can use me; I believe in recycling…but if he’s right, our world is about to change incredibly…whatever we do. The oceans will rise, and maybe…just maybe…a new sea will begin to form over Iowa, Nebraska, and all points between Houston and the high ground in Canada.
The weather will become much more capricious and deadly…actually, I think we’re ALREADY seeing that…and summers hotter…sound familiar?…and winters colder. It’s all tied up in haloclines. Google it if you’re interested, or check the links page. Things are going to change, and while we’re ENDLESSLY trying to reduce our carbon emissions, we better start planning where we’re going to put all those people sloshing in from the heartland…and our seashores.
The way I see it, we have three warring camps, geologists and oil people on one side discounting the contribution of CO2, environmentalists on another passionately devoted to the concept, and naysayers on still another denying that anything at all is happening. I don’t think we can do anything about the third group until they realize they’re wrong, but shouldn’t the others be allies rather than adversaries, working together instead of calling each other names? It’s time for us to look at this problem comprehensively, whatever the driving engine of global warming.
The problem is HUGE, and under way now, as I see it; there HAS to be a spot for everyone in figuring out what’s going on and hopefully, dealing with it successfully. Yelling at one another and choosing sides is pointless. Both groups make sense…and maybe the reality is some where in between, as it usually is in situations like this. I think it’s time to shave a little off our egos, pool our resources, hunker down, and work together like enlightened human beings. All you climate guys on both sides are smart; we know that, but fighting with each other while our world bakes and starts to drown is STUPID!
We don’t need stupid. We have too much of that already…most of it in Washington.

Let me see if I have this straight. We’re fighting a war to free people tenaciously living in the 13th century, people governed by tribal law and a Medieval social code…who gain most of their income from MARIJUANA and HEROIN, and we think somehow they’re going to EMBRACE democracy? WHO SAYS? Ten years ago if I had written stuff like this in a novel, it would have been INSTANTLY dismissed as too far-fetched to believe.
Yet, there we are, WASTING the promise of our youth, banging away, hoping, and bringing home coffins draped in Old Glory to curiously uncomfortable families and citizens. I’ve heard it said before. We should send our OLD GUYS to fight, not the kids, not those with unfulfilled lives. That way, wars would be a lot shorter and a lot better thought out…with a lot better reasons for starting them in the first place.
Got a flash for you “geniuses” in Washington…an oxymoron by anybody’s standard. Democracy grows from the hearts and minds of men who earnestly yearn for a better life, not people like this who are only looking for more efficient pesticides capable of doubling their crop of illicit drugs. How do you deal with a NATION in which the established industry is CRIMINAL at best? This time we’re in league with drug dealers, not the loftiest spot in the world.
We go in and build schools…and they kill us., establish hospitals…and they kill us, provide the tools for equality and hope…and they kill us, ask them to trust us and have faith in democracy…and they kill us. Anybody else notice a pattern here? Washington certainly hasn’t. THEY DON’T LIKE US…and want us the hell out of there…probably because it screws up their crops. If you can find somebody in the modern world who actually believes he’s living in the twelve hundreds, listen to him; he’ll tell you what it’s all about, but it’s a long shot.
Thanks to the Russians and our actions in the past, they have weapons now, but if even they didn’t, they’d be throwing rocks and spears, defending their primitive turf every which way they could. Conquering people who don’t share a modern concept isn’t easy, maybe not even possible because they’re unmoved by thoughts of improvement, perfectly happy where they are…and something else. They’re not ONE idiology or philosophy we can penetrate or reason them out of. They’re diverse; Medieval cultures are like that, itty bitty subcultures all over the place…but resolutely united against ANYONE who comes by planning to mess with them.
It’s like kicking a nest of water moccasins open. You can try to reason with them all you like…if you’re really that stupid, but the only SANE thing is to get the hell out of there…and FAST! Maybe they didn’t know it was a den of vipers when our “visionaries” decided to barge in, but a few minutes reading history could have told them what they were thinking about was worse than dumb. It was unbelievable…and that’s an all-time low, even for Washington.

OK…Civilization 101…here goes…looks to me like those people on the Potomac need it. First of all, not EVERYBODY is civilized, the way you seem to think. Instead of a uniform blanket of intelligence and good will embracing the planet, we have people at many points along the curve…all the way from intelligent, well-informed, and kind to ELEMENTAL, fiercely tribal, violent, and immovable. I know it’s in vogue right now to consider everybody to be just like us…only deprived, but you gotta know; some of them are intransigent, BAD mothers, and THOSE are the ones we’ve chosen to engage in a war.
I know it’s all wrapped up in Pakistan wanting to blow up India and India wanting to blow up Pakistan, but Guys, be real. How much can we defuse that situation by bleeding to death in Afghanistan? Truth is, you could bring the Afghans to a grinding halt by burning all their cherished Mary Jane plants and poppies from the air…but you won’t…and I have NO IDEA why. Hit them in their pocketbooks, I say; make it hurt, and they’ll CRAWL to the negotiating table. I know you guys in Washington don’t think like this…BUT THEY DO!
God, we’re in trouble, overflowing with “feel good” politicians who haven’t the slightest nubbin of an idea about what’s REALLY going on. While our infrastructure crumbles and our schools stagnate, those despicable vote-getters keep playing chess with an adversary still stuck on BACKGAMMON and the thirteenth century. If you don’t have the balls to deal decisively in Afghanistan, QUIT GETTING OUR YOUNG MEN KILLED and get our ass out of there…not a few thousand here and there…ALL OF THEM! We’re gonna need those guys to help put our fractured country back together.
You can’t be all things to all people. Deal with your own back yard before you even think about going five thousand miles to make OTHER people’s lives better. Just now, our lives are pretty crappy, our country fragmenting, and the worst part is it seems to us you haven’t even noticed. THINK ABOUT US! Where the hell do you think those dollars you’re spending come from? Oh, I forgot; you’re printing a lot of it out of thin air…inviting inflation…another brilliant idea. Your fantasies are grandiose…but built on illusions and BORROWED MONEY!
One of the most chilling moments I’ve ever experienced was in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, the site of Madame la Guillotine during the French Revolution. My epiphany transformed me when I thought about the lives so mercilessly cut off in that horrible place. Nowadays, you can’t smell the blood there, but it is…between the cobblestones, deep into the soil…and seared into France’s cultural memory. Standing near the Brest statue, exactly where the guillotine was in those days, I kept asking myself, “Why was it so savage?” That’s the only word I could think of, savage, and I kept wondering how the hell it got that far…until it came to me.
NOBODY WAS LISTENING. NOBODY CARED. Take notice, you eminently fallible, stupid politicians. We don’t like what you’re doing. These days we’re CIVILIZED and don’t have guillotines, so you don’t have to worry about your necks…but we DO have ballot boxes. For God’s sake, listen…listen…LISTEN!…and change course because there’s thunder and lightning in the failure to do so. Right now, my thought is to throw them all out, sweep those sullied marble halls clean in the next few elections. A new crop of politicians couldn’t possibly be as horrible as the ones we have now. I know it’s another long shot, but I’m beginning to think it might be worth a try.