Of Mice and Men
the recent beheading of another american in iraq made me wonder again why people who are about to be executed don't resist; criminals who are led into the death chamber, these poor souls in iraq.
it's not that i'm calling into question their courage. resisting would do nothing. but that it would do nothing is also the point: if compliance cannot conceivably effect an improvement in your circumstances, why not at least get in a shot at your killer(s)?
i remember ted kennedy saying once that he just hoped that if someone was going to try to assasinate him that the killer would do it from the front so that he could at least get a swing in at the guy.
obviously, there's something psychological going on here. is it that the fear of death is so overpowering and certain that you don't want to get yourself all worked up for nothing? or you can't move, a la deer-in-the-headlights, or that resisting might turn a swift, relatively painless death into a torturous one?
file this under the category of "easy for you to say" but you know that "the ultimate act of defiance" cartoon of the eagle swooping down on the field mouse and the field mouse giving the
eagle the finger? i'd like to think that if i knew that i was going to be beheaded and that it was being videotaped that i would act as the field mouse and fight back or utter an islamic curse, or say something like "you're just mad because i fucked your mother in the ass last night," or SOMETHING.
i hope i'd be a mouse and not a man.
-benjamin harris
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Thursday, September 23, 2004
INVESTMENT ADVICE
"bring on arsenal." that was the headline quote from manchester city manager kevin keegan on espn's soccernet today.
the article itself didn't have keegan uttering those words but if he did--or said anything close--then he is a fool for putting a bee in arsenal's bonnett.
the reason for keegan's bluster: a 7-1 pounding of poor barnsley in an fa cup match, preceeded by a 2-1 win at crystal palace, by far the most overmatched team in the premiership this year.
not exactly like consecutive squashings of man-u and chelsea.
arsenal just broke england's premiership record for consecutive matches without a loss. they are a well-coached, disciplined, talented and proud team.
man city (beloved by me though they are) is an overpaid, underperforming, weak-kneed bunch with a skittish goaltender and a manager who has never played, or coached, defense.
this is my "football" pick of the week. whereever you can find the line, whatever the line is, take arsenal to win.
-benjamin harris
"bring on arsenal." that was the headline quote from manchester city manager kevin keegan on espn's soccernet today.
the article itself didn't have keegan uttering those words but if he did--or said anything close--then he is a fool for putting a bee in arsenal's bonnett.
the reason for keegan's bluster: a 7-1 pounding of poor barnsley in an fa cup match, preceeded by a 2-1 win at crystal palace, by far the most overmatched team in the premiership this year.
not exactly like consecutive squashings of man-u and chelsea.
arsenal just broke england's premiership record for consecutive matches without a loss. they are a well-coached, disciplined, talented and proud team.
man city (beloved by me though they are) is an overpaid, underperforming, weak-kneed bunch with a skittish goaltender and a manager who has never played, or coached, defense.
this is my "football" pick of the week. whereever you can find the line, whatever the line is, take arsenal to win.
-benjamin harris
Monday, September 20, 2004
i'm reading donald kuspit's new book "the end of art. i like kuspit a lot. i've read a couple of his books before this one.
you know that scene from the woody allen movie where he tries to pick up the girl who's staring at the painting on the wall in the museum? allen goes up to her and says, "what does it say to you?", and the girl replies with something like, "it speaks to me of the incredible blackness of the universe; of the void and man's insignificance in it." "whaddya doing friday night," allen asks. "committing suicide," the girl says.
that's a pretty good description of the art world--artists and critics--today. it is so dark and gloomy.
i don't mean by that art's subject matter. historically art's themes often have been about suffering and pain--the crucifiction, war, etc.--because art is so empathic and empathy means to experience what someone else is feeling and we often want others to feel the pain that we feel or see.
rather, what i mean is that art--artists and critics--is so negative and takes itself so seriously. "the end of art." how much more negative, how much more seriously can you take yourself as to proclaim that? "art after the end of art," by arthur danto and "art after the end of art and after," by joseph kosuth are two more very well-regarded books on art theory.
the end of art. really? is it that bad? kuspit is critical, bitterly so, of post-modern art. from what i can tell the post-modernists deserve to be flayed. but are frank stella, allan kaprow, cindy sherman and damien hirst, et al charlatans, who have always been charlatans? really, that's what kuspit says. have they succeeded in fooling most of the cognescenti most of the time?
from my job experience and belief system i can accept that there are people who are born charlatans. and those who are born saints; those who are born criminals, and those who are born leaders. but in my experience and belief system such people are exceedingly rare. most of us are a combination of all of those personalities, good and evil.
so it's hard for me to believe that all of those prominent contemporary artists, or "artists," had a charlatan personality type and decided that of all the snake oil that they could get by with selling that it was art that they chose.
i tend to think that they and the other post-modernists are as well-meaning and serious about trying to do good art as donald kuspit is trying to do good art criticism. their art is apparently not his art and my art may not be your art but to be so dismissive of an entire movement and of so many artists seems fishy.
for a very long time now art has been seen as searching for itself. there is no accepted way of doing art. the most fundamental issues about the field are open for debate: what is art, what is good art, how do we judge art. all of those questions are on the table and have been for 40-50 years.
it's very disconcerting. i have argued here previously that i do not think the art world is in "crisis", that just as it always has been, it is now the future of what society and other serious fields, like physics and philosophy, will become, that is decentralized, without a dominant "paradigm" to answer a priori those fundamental questions for us before we even start, but that's the hokum "theory" of a diletantte and sometimes however you answer or want to address those fundamental questions you just need to step back. and enjoy. enjoy art, and life. look at what's being made today under the guise of art and try it.
it seems to me that the bitter criticism in art today, and the categoricals used by kuspit and others are a mask for all this uncertainty.
anytime someone or something is characterized in terms a synonym for which would be "demonization," alarm bells go off in my head.
donald kuspit is critical, bitterly so, of the
it is not the dark subject matter
you know that scene from the woody allen movie where he tries to pick up the girl who's staring at the painting on the wall in the museum? allen goes up to her and says, "what does it say to you?", and the girl replies with something like, "it speaks to me of the incredible blackness of the universe; of the void and man's insignificance in it." "whaddya doing friday night," allen asks. "committing suicide," the girl says.
that's a pretty good description of the art world--artists and critics--today. it is so dark and gloomy.
i don't mean by that art's subject matter. historically art's themes often have been about suffering and pain--the crucifiction, war, etc.--because art is so empathic and empathy means to experience what someone else is feeling and we often want others to feel the pain that we feel or see.
rather, what i mean is that art--artists and critics--is so negative and takes itself so seriously. "the end of art." how much more negative, how much more seriously can you take yourself as to proclaim that? "art after the end of art," by arthur danto and "art after the end of art and after," by joseph kosuth are two more very well-regarded books on art theory.
the end of art. really? is it that bad? kuspit is critical, bitterly so, of post-modern art. from what i can tell the post-modernists deserve to be flayed. but are frank stella, allan kaprow, cindy sherman and damien hirst, et al charlatans, who have always been charlatans? really, that's what kuspit says. have they succeeded in fooling most of the cognescenti most of the time?
from my job experience and belief system i can accept that there are people who are born charlatans. and those who are born saints; those who are born criminals, and those who are born leaders. but in my experience and belief system such people are exceedingly rare. most of us are a combination of all of those personalities, good and evil.
so it's hard for me to believe that all of those prominent contemporary artists, or "artists," had a charlatan personality type and decided that of all the snake oil that they could get by with selling that it was art that they chose.
i tend to think that they and the other post-modernists are as well-meaning and serious about trying to do good art as donald kuspit is trying to do good art criticism. their art is apparently not his art and my art may not be your art but to be so dismissive of an entire movement and of so many artists seems fishy.
for a very long time now art has been seen as searching for itself. there is no accepted way of doing art. the most fundamental issues about the field are open for debate: what is art, what is good art, how do we judge art. all of those questions are on the table and have been for 40-50 years.
it's very disconcerting. i have argued here previously that i do not think the art world is in "crisis", that just as it always has been, it is now the future of what society and other serious fields, like physics and philosophy, will become, that is decentralized, without a dominant "paradigm" to answer a priori those fundamental questions for us before we even start, but that's the hokum "theory" of a diletantte and sometimes however you answer or want to address those fundamental questions you just need to step back. and enjoy. enjoy art, and life. look at what's being made today under the guise of art and try it.
it seems to me that the bitter criticism in art today, and the categoricals used by kuspit and others are a mask for all this uncertainty.
anytime someone or something is characterized in terms a synonym for which would be "demonization," alarm bells go off in my head.
donald kuspit is critical, bitterly so, of the
it is not the dark subject matter
Friday, September 17, 2004
Thursday, September 16, 2004
the excerpt from "remembrance of things past" in the preceding post is one of those rare "impressions" that will stay with me for the rest of my life, like when i first heard bach's brandenburgs, the first time i heard sarah vaughns singing, when i first tasted uesquebach scotch on my first night in cambridge at a restaurant in harvard square, when i had a particular cake with successive layers of chocolate, raspberries, and almonds at dinner at the rose inn in upstate new york one christmas vacation many years ago.
i read that excerpt this afternoon and immediately knew that i had to post it as one of the most profound things i'd ever read. although "remembrance" is a novel, that excerpt is philosophy. as i typed it a little while ago i was reminded, in its wisdom, economy and especially tone, of "desiderata,"--you know "go placidly...", etc.--that was so popular in the 1970's and was actually put to song. i'm sure "desiderata" is scoffed at by others and the comparison to proust considered outrageous but to this lump of mediocrity "desiderata" was beautiful, instructive and wise.
a more well-received comparison would be with marcus auerilius' "meditations." i remember prof michael sugrue's lecture on the "meditations" in one of the teaching company's tapes. he said that there has never been any book like it, so measured, reflective, spiritually generous, practical, instructive and wise, AND that was written by the most powerful man in the world at the time.
as it turns out, prof sugrue was also the teaching company's lecturer on "remembrance." he said that of all the world's literary masterpieces it is probably the least read. i am on page 924, and am less than one-third the way through it. that's undoubtedly the most important reason. too, proust wrote in hegelian-length sentences with so many clauses and parentheticals that you have to read many of the sentence three times, once straight through as you come onto it, another skipping the parentheticals so that you can get the primary import, and then again straight through.
third, it is a translation from the french. i have written here previously on the hazards of reading translations (see "lost in translation" from the summer of '03). there is just no way that something, especially a work of literature with its nuances of tone and emotion, can be translated with 100% fidelity into a different language even though the translation that i'm reading, by moncrieff and kilmartin is almost miraculous. now, i don't read french but i've read enough translated books to know, or at least sense, that this translation could not possibly have been done better.
fourth, however transcendent the message, a 3,000 page novel written by a "foreigner," and set in a foreign culture is a distancing piece of work. the places are not familiar, the names don't have familiar sounds, there is far less of the congruity of shared history and experience that reader and author have than in a work of american fiction.
finally, proust was just an odd guy, a confessed and obvious neurotic who literally saw nerve-fraying complexity in the physics of the kiss.
the mind tends to wander when reading this book.
but the mind wanders at its peril because there are so many, and so frequently occurring , passages of INSIGHT comparable to the excerpt that i posted, that you want to go back and re-read because of the chance that you glossed over something great.
there's no point in someone like me trying to sum up the novel, hell i'm only 1/3 of the way through it, and i won't be capable of doing that when i'm done either. even for sugrue, it must have been embarrasing for him to be given the job of summarizing the book in two 45 minute lectures.
but there are many passages similar to the above and most importantly for me personally "remembrance" has given me, in the section "swann in love," a start at understanding the great love of my life, and the loss of that love. as proust says at one point, sometimes when we understand something intellectually we can put it in a place in our brain that the rest of us is safe from. we can contain it.
i never went through anything as hard as i did last summer and fall in trying to understand my own situation and i failed. proust's section on charles swann's relationship with odette de crecy gave me an intellectual archetechtonicus to begin to understand it. an emotional and spiritual resolution may or may not follow. i always think about the writings of nietzsche, kirkegaard and proust on the seperation of intellect and soul and the impossiblity, sometimes, of understanding to overcome or salve an unwell soul.
but i've got 2,000 pages to go and proust has already given me reason to believe that "we must not repudiate" any of the "lives," however difficult, that we have lived because they are part of our individual journey, "proof that we have really lived," and in the end we may have "extracted something that transcends them."
-benjamin harris
i read that excerpt this afternoon and immediately knew that i had to post it as one of the most profound things i'd ever read. although "remembrance" is a novel, that excerpt is philosophy. as i typed it a little while ago i was reminded, in its wisdom, economy and especially tone, of "desiderata,"--you know "go placidly...", etc.--that was so popular in the 1970's and was actually put to song. i'm sure "desiderata" is scoffed at by others and the comparison to proust considered outrageous but to this lump of mediocrity "desiderata" was beautiful, instructive and wise.
a more well-received comparison would be with marcus auerilius' "meditations." i remember prof michael sugrue's lecture on the "meditations" in one of the teaching company's tapes. he said that there has never been any book like it, so measured, reflective, spiritually generous, practical, instructive and wise, AND that was written by the most powerful man in the world at the time.
as it turns out, prof sugrue was also the teaching company's lecturer on "remembrance." he said that of all the world's literary masterpieces it is probably the least read. i am on page 924, and am less than one-third the way through it. that's undoubtedly the most important reason. too, proust wrote in hegelian-length sentences with so many clauses and parentheticals that you have to read many of the sentence three times, once straight through as you come onto it, another skipping the parentheticals so that you can get the primary import, and then again straight through.
third, it is a translation from the french. i have written here previously on the hazards of reading translations (see "lost in translation" from the summer of '03). there is just no way that something, especially a work of literature with its nuances of tone and emotion, can be translated with 100% fidelity into a different language even though the translation that i'm reading, by moncrieff and kilmartin is almost miraculous. now, i don't read french but i've read enough translated books to know, or at least sense, that this translation could not possibly have been done better.
fourth, however transcendent the message, a 3,000 page novel written by a "foreigner," and set in a foreign culture is a distancing piece of work. the places are not familiar, the names don't have familiar sounds, there is far less of the congruity of shared history and experience that reader and author have than in a work of american fiction.
finally, proust was just an odd guy, a confessed and obvious neurotic who literally saw nerve-fraying complexity in the physics of the kiss.
the mind tends to wander when reading this book.
but the mind wanders at its peril because there are so many, and so frequently occurring , passages of INSIGHT comparable to the excerpt that i posted, that you want to go back and re-read because of the chance that you glossed over something great.
there's no point in someone like me trying to sum up the novel, hell i'm only 1/3 of the way through it, and i won't be capable of doing that when i'm done either. even for sugrue, it must have been embarrasing for him to be given the job of summarizing the book in two 45 minute lectures.
but there are many passages similar to the above and most importantly for me personally "remembrance" has given me, in the section "swann in love," a start at understanding the great love of my life, and the loss of that love. as proust says at one point, sometimes when we understand something intellectually we can put it in a place in our brain that the rest of us is safe from. we can contain it.
i never went through anything as hard as i did last summer and fall in trying to understand my own situation and i failed. proust's section on charles swann's relationship with odette de crecy gave me an intellectual archetechtonicus to begin to understand it. an emotional and spiritual resolution may or may not follow. i always think about the writings of nietzsche, kirkegaard and proust on the seperation of intellect and soul and the impossiblity, sometimes, of understanding to overcome or salve an unwell soul.
but i've got 2,000 pages to go and proust has already given me reason to believe that "we must not repudiate" any of the "lives," however difficult, that we have lived because they are part of our individual journey, "proof that we have really lived," and in the end we may have "extracted something that transcends them."
-benjamin harris
" 'there is no man,' he began, 'however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. and yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man--so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise--unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be preceded. i know that there are young people, the sons and grandsons of distinguished men, whose masters have instilled into them nobility of mind and moral refinement from their schooldays. they may perhaps have nothing to retract from their past lives; they could publish a signed account of everything they have ever said or done; but they are poor creatures, feeble descendants of doctrinaires, and their wisdom is negative and sterile. we do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. the lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you, have not been shaped by a paterfamilias or a schoolmaster, they have sprung from very different beginnings, having been influenced by everything evil or commonplace that prevailed round about them. they represent a struggle and a victory. i can see that the picture of what we were at an earlier stage may not be recognisable and cannot, certainly, be pleasing to contemplate in later life. but we must not repudiate it, for it is a proof that we have really lived, that it is in accordance with the laws of life and of the mind that we have, from the common elements of life, of the life of studios, of artistic groups--assuming one is a painter--extracted something that transcends them.' "
-marcel proust, "remembrance of things past."
-marcel proust, "remembrance of things past."
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
"PEOPLE WHO TALK IN METAPHORS CAN SHAMPOO MY CROTCH"
'member that line from "as good as it gets?"
i have grown weary of shop-worn (there's another one) metaphors, so when i assume full dictatorial powers the following shall be banished from the language:
"Gordian knot."
"between a rock and a hard place."
"[(s)he took to it like a duck to water."
"wathershed."
"landmark," as in "landmark decision" to describe an allegedly important ruling by the supremes.
"achilles heel."
"pandora's box."
"pyrric victory."
"smokescreen."
"landslide." some metaphors are almost exclusively context-specific. ever hear of a sports team winning in a "landslide?" why is it that ONLY in politics is a one-sided defeat described with use of this metaphor? see below.
it's hard to write, as i've discovered in the last 2 1/2 years here, and the use of such hackneyed language is just a crutch for us when we get lazy about writing. instead of trying to write something simply and clearly we lean on this crap. maybe we think it makes us sound smart but it really just makes us sound lazy and cliched.
(more to come)
'member that line from "as good as it gets?"
i have grown weary of shop-worn (there's another one) metaphors, so when i assume full dictatorial powers the following shall be banished from the language:
"Gordian knot."
"between a rock and a hard place."
"[(s)he took to it like a duck to water."
"wathershed."
"landmark," as in "landmark decision" to describe an allegedly important ruling by the supremes.
"achilles heel."
"pandora's box."
"pyrric victory."
"smokescreen."
"landslide." some metaphors are almost exclusively context-specific. ever hear of a sports team winning in a "landslide?" why is it that ONLY in politics is a one-sided defeat described with use of this metaphor? see below.
it's hard to write, as i've discovered in the last 2 1/2 years here, and the use of such hackneyed language is just a crutch for us when we get lazy about writing. instead of trying to write something simply and clearly we lean on this crap. maybe we think it makes us sound smart but it really just makes us sound lazy and cliched.
(more to come)
Sunday, September 12, 2004
UNDERDOGS, cont.
RAISINS WIN! RAISINS WIN!
how 'bout dem wrinkled grapes! fresno state followed up their win at the university of washington with a 45-21 thrashing of kansas state in manhattan. the only downer there is that one of our beloved state schools was the victim, but ksu has had a lot of success the last good while. this win was good for underdogdom generally.
it was altogether a good saturday for underdogs in college tackle football. southern mississippi beat nebraska 21-17; TROY STATE, TROY FRIGGIN' STATE! BEAT THE RANKED MISSOURI "SHOW-ME'S" 24-14.
there was some cognitive dissonance a la fresno/ksu though in boise state's thumping of the "beavers" of oregon state 53-34 and mississippi state got killed by auburn 43-14.
other underdog losers were the new mexico state "deserts" in a 41-14 squeaker to cal and the washington state "apples" lost 20-12 to one of my most-hated "university ofs...", the colorado "rapists". but hey, you can't be an underdog without such depressing setbacks.
-benjamin harris
RAISINS WIN! RAISINS WIN!
how 'bout dem wrinkled grapes! fresno state followed up their win at the university of washington with a 45-21 thrashing of kansas state in manhattan. the only downer there is that one of our beloved state schools was the victim, but ksu has had a lot of success the last good while. this win was good for underdogdom generally.
it was altogether a good saturday for underdogs in college tackle football. southern mississippi beat nebraska 21-17; TROY STATE, TROY FRIGGIN' STATE! BEAT THE RANKED MISSOURI "SHOW-ME'S" 24-14.
there was some cognitive dissonance a la fresno/ksu though in boise state's thumping of the "beavers" of oregon state 53-34 and mississippi state got killed by auburn 43-14.
other underdog losers were the new mexico state "deserts" in a 41-14 squeaker to cal and the washington state "apples" lost 20-12 to one of my most-hated "university ofs...", the colorado "rapists". but hey, you can't be an underdog without such depressing setbacks.
-benjamin harris
Friday, September 10, 2004
"I'D LIKE TO BUY THE WORLD A COKE"
heard on npr a little while ago that the composer of that little jingle from 1971 died last week. his name was billy davis.
god, i hadn't thought of that song in so long. i've had "love will keep us together" get stuck in my head a few times since 1971 but not the coke song.
pop songs bring back memories of course. i don't know why that is exactly but we sometimes precisely associate them with an event, often a romance. such-and-such was "our song, "etc.
significantly this song brought back a mood, a happy, light mood that was in stark contrast to it's era. arthur danto has written that the 1970's were a cultural dark age, as dark as the 10th century. for all of us who came of age in that decade: ouch. but think about it; it's hard to argue with that. the 70's was the era of gerald ford, jimmy carter, disco, the captain and tenille, leisure suits, barry manilow, and baseball uniforms with shorts.
i have written here previously that of course what we mean by a cultural era of this decade or that decade is not defined by a 10-year span. the turbulent, violent 60's didn't begin in 1960. i would argue that they began on november 22, 1963 and lasted until nixon's resignation in 1974.
the goofball, culturally bankrupt 70's began then and lasted, probably till reagan's election with it's "it's morning in america" theme and the start of the "me decade."
"i'd like to buy the world a coke" therefore properly belongs to the sixties. it was a utopian song that went along with some of the utopian "philosophy" of the time, peace symbols, flowers in your hair and all that. in fact, it sounded like it was sung by peter, paul, and mary or the mammas and the pappas, two quintessentially sixties pop groups.
the npr report reminded me that that damn little song was sung ALL OVER THE WORLD. it really did have universal appeal. it made everybody sing and smile. it was also turned into a hit single, the references to coke being replaced by "to sing."
npr's classical music critic said that there are similarities between "coke" and beethoven's "ode to joy," now the anthem of the european union.
classical-pop similarities are always suspicious--you know, basketball to ballet--but in this case the comparison rang true. both "songs" are emotionally soaring. you FEEL joy when you hear "joy" just as we did everytime we heard "coke."
whoever-he-was also pointed out that there are structural similarities. the first "part"--i don't know what it's really called in music--in both pieces ends with a "musical question" that is "answered" in the second part. and of course the answer is a resounding affirmative: yes to joy, yes to happiness, yes to hope, yes to our dreams.
the npr guy also said that the lyrics to "joy" were taken from a poem by shiller, some of the lines of which, man's brotherhood for example, are extremely similar to those of "coke's" mankind "holding hands."
so here's to billy davis; he wrote something that lept the bounds of advertising into american popular culture and then soared over those bounds to all the civilizations of the world when that world looked like it could be blown up at any moment.
here's to billy davis. have a coke and a smile.
-benjamin harris
heard on npr a little while ago that the composer of that little jingle from 1971 died last week. his name was billy davis.
god, i hadn't thought of that song in so long. i've had "love will keep us together" get stuck in my head a few times since 1971 but not the coke song.
pop songs bring back memories of course. i don't know why that is exactly but we sometimes precisely associate them with an event, often a romance. such-and-such was "our song, "etc.
significantly this song brought back a mood, a happy, light mood that was in stark contrast to it's era. arthur danto has written that the 1970's were a cultural dark age, as dark as the 10th century. for all of us who came of age in that decade: ouch. but think about it; it's hard to argue with that. the 70's was the era of gerald ford, jimmy carter, disco, the captain and tenille, leisure suits, barry manilow, and baseball uniforms with shorts.
i have written here previously that of course what we mean by a cultural era of this decade or that decade is not defined by a 10-year span. the turbulent, violent 60's didn't begin in 1960. i would argue that they began on november 22, 1963 and lasted until nixon's resignation in 1974.
the goofball, culturally bankrupt 70's began then and lasted, probably till reagan's election with it's "it's morning in america" theme and the start of the "me decade."
"i'd like to buy the world a coke" therefore properly belongs to the sixties. it was a utopian song that went along with some of the utopian "philosophy" of the time, peace symbols, flowers in your hair and all that. in fact, it sounded like it was sung by peter, paul, and mary or the mammas and the pappas, two quintessentially sixties pop groups.
the npr report reminded me that that damn little song was sung ALL OVER THE WORLD. it really did have universal appeal. it made everybody sing and smile. it was also turned into a hit single, the references to coke being replaced by "to sing."
npr's classical music critic said that there are similarities between "coke" and beethoven's "ode to joy," now the anthem of the european union.
classical-pop similarities are always suspicious--you know, basketball to ballet--but in this case the comparison rang true. both "songs" are emotionally soaring. you FEEL joy when you hear "joy" just as we did everytime we heard "coke."
whoever-he-was also pointed out that there are structural similarities. the first "part"--i don't know what it's really called in music--in both pieces ends with a "musical question" that is "answered" in the second part. and of course the answer is a resounding affirmative: yes to joy, yes to happiness, yes to hope, yes to our dreams.
the npr guy also said that the lyrics to "joy" were taken from a poem by shiller, some of the lines of which, man's brotherhood for example, are extremely similar to those of "coke's" mankind "holding hands."
so here's to billy davis; he wrote something that lept the bounds of advertising into american popular culture and then soared over those bounds to all the civilizations of the world when that world looked like it could be blown up at any moment.
here's to billy davis. have a coke and a smile.
-benjamin harris
Thursday, September 09, 2004
the poor democrats, they just can't keep their feet out of their mouths on foreign policy, can they?
this is a little dated now but john kerry's grand canyon comment that he would still have voted to give the president authorization to use force in iraq reinforced (1) voters doubts about the demos ability to deal with f.p. issues, and (2) their doubts about kerry's alleged vacillation tendencies.
that is a rare thing, putting both feet in one's mouth at the same time.
the day kerry made the comment i saw my ex-wife at her house and said that i thought he had hurt himself. she is EXTREMELY partisan in this election and replied exasperatedly, "i don't know why, that's what he's been saying all along."
oh.
then i guess that i and about 50,000,000 other voters missed it. i and fifty million of my closest friends had thought we had heard kerry giving speech after speech for six months lambasting bush for the war.
kerry spent significant time in his convention speech trying to explain that the criticism of him, that his positions on issues are too "complex," was actually intellectual honesty and not triangulating vacillation. then he blows it at the grand canyon.
it's so frustrating because this needn't have happened. i don't know if kerry was playing to his base with his criticisms or what but he or someone in that campaign should have realized that the natural follow-up to those speeches was going to be "ok, so knowing what you know now, how would you have voted?"
kerry is a good man, the weightiest candidate on military matters that the demos have had in a long time. he voted for the force authorization resolution. he should have left it there and SHUT THE FUCK UP. he should have turned his focus onto economic issues, his, and the demos, natural strength.
the way for a democrat to beat bush this year is/was to be pretty quiet about f.p., say all the platitudinous things about "the war on terror" and COUNTERPUNCH when flight boy started making his comparisons to churchill.
here's complexity for kerry that even his complex intellect apparently can't grasp. most voters still view the decision to go to war as the right thing to do, even though they don't like the way the post-end-of-major-hostilities period went and the cost of the whole thing.
but iraq as an issue is pretty much dead. it's over. we've turned over authority to the iraqis and while voters don't like americans continually getting killed over there they accept that our presence there is needed and will be for some time.
now, since voters think all of those things, where exactly is the political opening for a candidate to criticize the war? IT ISN'T THERE!
the best thing for kerry to have done/do is to wait for bush to overplay his hand and then counterpunch. instead it was kerry who, for "complex" unknown reasons overplayed his hand.
now voters are left with these doubts about where kerry really stands and who he really is. they don't know if they can trust him with being commander in chief.
it's still early and kerry is a famously strong finisher and there apparently is going to be a shakeup in his campaign to develop a simple (i.e. not complex) message and stick with it. he can still pull this out but he's dug himself a hole and then stepped right into it.
the dumbass.
-benjamin harris
this is a little dated now but john kerry's grand canyon comment that he would still have voted to give the president authorization to use force in iraq reinforced (1) voters doubts about the demos ability to deal with f.p. issues, and (2) their doubts about kerry's alleged vacillation tendencies.
that is a rare thing, putting both feet in one's mouth at the same time.
the day kerry made the comment i saw my ex-wife at her house and said that i thought he had hurt himself. she is EXTREMELY partisan in this election and replied exasperatedly, "i don't know why, that's what he's been saying all along."
oh.
then i guess that i and about 50,000,000 other voters missed it. i and fifty million of my closest friends had thought we had heard kerry giving speech after speech for six months lambasting bush for the war.
kerry spent significant time in his convention speech trying to explain that the criticism of him, that his positions on issues are too "complex," was actually intellectual honesty and not triangulating vacillation. then he blows it at the grand canyon.
it's so frustrating because this needn't have happened. i don't know if kerry was playing to his base with his criticisms or what but he or someone in that campaign should have realized that the natural follow-up to those speeches was going to be "ok, so knowing what you know now, how would you have voted?"
kerry is a good man, the weightiest candidate on military matters that the demos have had in a long time. he voted for the force authorization resolution. he should have left it there and SHUT THE FUCK UP. he should have turned his focus onto economic issues, his, and the demos, natural strength.
the way for a democrat to beat bush this year is/was to be pretty quiet about f.p., say all the platitudinous things about "the war on terror" and COUNTERPUNCH when flight boy started making his comparisons to churchill.
here's complexity for kerry that even his complex intellect apparently can't grasp. most voters still view the decision to go to war as the right thing to do, even though they don't like the way the post-end-of-major-hostilities period went and the cost of the whole thing.
but iraq as an issue is pretty much dead. it's over. we've turned over authority to the iraqis and while voters don't like americans continually getting killed over there they accept that our presence there is needed and will be for some time.
now, since voters think all of those things, where exactly is the political opening for a candidate to criticize the war? IT ISN'T THERE!
the best thing for kerry to have done/do is to wait for bush to overplay his hand and then counterpunch. instead it was kerry who, for "complex" unknown reasons overplayed his hand.
now voters are left with these doubts about where kerry really stands and who he really is. they don't know if they can trust him with being commander in chief.
it's still early and kerry is a famously strong finisher and there apparently is going to be a shakeup in his campaign to develop a simple (i.e. not complex) message and stick with it. he can still pull this out but he's dug himself a hole and then stepped right into it.
the dumbass.
-benjamin harris
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
UNDERDOG SUPPORTERS UPDATE
did you see that the fresno state raisins, or whatever they're called, beat no killed a "university of..." in this case washington? that's a two-fer. a state school wins and a "university of..." is beaten by them.
rutgers a woebegone "university of..." wannabe (full name is "rutgers, the state university of new jersey") beat michigan state. how embarassing for m.s.u.
i must drop idaho state from the list, it being pointed out to me that they don't even play div. IA tackle football. good-bye to the aryan nationists, and sorry.
why not auburn as a replacement for idaho state? they fit the bill in every way being the second school in alabama. because they are the most penalized program in college tackle football history. they've been put on probation something like 8 times. you just can't do that. a true second school accepts its caste but struggles nobly against it. it doesn't pay recruits.
-benjamin harris
did you see that the fresno state raisins, or whatever they're called, beat no killed a "university of..." in this case washington? that's a two-fer. a state school wins and a "university of..." is beaten by them.
rutgers a woebegone "university of..." wannabe (full name is "rutgers, the state university of new jersey") beat michigan state. how embarassing for m.s.u.
i must drop idaho state from the list, it being pointed out to me that they don't even play div. IA tackle football. good-bye to the aryan nationists, and sorry.
why not auburn as a replacement for idaho state? they fit the bill in every way being the second school in alabama. because they are the most penalized program in college tackle football history. they've been put on probation something like 8 times. you just can't do that. a true second school accepts its caste but struggles nobly against it. it doesn't pay recruits.
-benjamin harris
THE GARMAN-GILL FAMILIES-WRITTEN 1971 BY ELIZABETH GARMAN GILL, continued.
Eva loved horses and could hitch up a horse to a buggy or a cart and drive as well as a boy. when she rode a horse she rode at a gallop. She had long wavy brown hair that hung to her waist, and when she rode she drew many admiring glances as she galloped along, her long hair flying. she became a teacher and taught in the garman school and at greenwich. she married hale mcanulty who became a very successful doctor with his office in nanty glo. their daughter, rhea married attorney john w. taylor and they lived in Ebensburg.
Ernest didn't like school but loved to read. He liked the outdoors, hunting and fishing, and he was an excellent ice-skater. he became the manager of a garage in emeigh. he married madge griffith. their daughter, June married James Mulvichill, children Dona, Leslie, Debbie, and Janet. The lived in Riverdale Maryland.
From the time he was a small child, Harry lugged around an old satchel and proclaimed himself a doctor. But, of course, even doctors if they are raised on a farm have to take their share of the farm work as did each of the boys. Harry was always a willing worker in anything he did. He, too, became a teacher before going to Medical College in Pittsburgh. After graduation he served two years as intern in St. John's Hospital in Pittsburgh. He married Velma Montgomery and located in Emeign. Later his office was in Barnesboro. He became a very successful surgeion and was chief of staff at the Miners Hospital in Spangler. He built a lovely red brick house where our old farmhouse had been and lived there until his death in 1960. This house is now owned by Dr. Peter Korch, a Barnesboro dentist.
In 1890, our new white house on the farm was built and the family moved in. Here, on August 13, 1890 I was born. I was a scrawny light-haired youngster, sucking my thumb and twisting my hair with the other hand. I loved school and learned many poems, many that I remember and can repeat today. I graduated from our two-year high school in the 1908 class. Our was the thrid class to be graduated from our new high school. By attending summer Teachers' Training School conducted in Barnesboro each summer by Professor C.B. DeLancey, I passed the Teachers' Examination and began teaching at eighteen in Susquehanna Township.
(to be continued)
Eva loved horses and could hitch up a horse to a buggy or a cart and drive as well as a boy. when she rode a horse she rode at a gallop. She had long wavy brown hair that hung to her waist, and when she rode she drew many admiring glances as she galloped along, her long hair flying. she became a teacher and taught in the garman school and at greenwich. she married hale mcanulty who became a very successful doctor with his office in nanty glo. their daughter, rhea married attorney john w. taylor and they lived in Ebensburg.
Ernest didn't like school but loved to read. He liked the outdoors, hunting and fishing, and he was an excellent ice-skater. he became the manager of a garage in emeigh. he married madge griffith. their daughter, June married James Mulvichill, children Dona, Leslie, Debbie, and Janet. The lived in Riverdale Maryland.
From the time he was a small child, Harry lugged around an old satchel and proclaimed himself a doctor. But, of course, even doctors if they are raised on a farm have to take their share of the farm work as did each of the boys. Harry was always a willing worker in anything he did. He, too, became a teacher before going to Medical College in Pittsburgh. After graduation he served two years as intern in St. John's Hospital in Pittsburgh. He married Velma Montgomery and located in Emeign. Later his office was in Barnesboro. He became a very successful surgeion and was chief of staff at the Miners Hospital in Spangler. He built a lovely red brick house where our old farmhouse had been and lived there until his death in 1960. This house is now owned by Dr. Peter Korch, a Barnesboro dentist.
In 1890, our new white house on the farm was built and the family moved in. Here, on August 13, 1890 I was born. I was a scrawny light-haired youngster, sucking my thumb and twisting my hair with the other hand. I loved school and learned many poems, many that I remember and can repeat today. I graduated from our two-year high school in the 1908 class. Our was the thrid class to be graduated from our new high school. By attending summer Teachers' Training School conducted in Barnesboro each summer by Professor C.B. DeLancey, I passed the Teachers' Examination and began teaching at eighteen in Susquehanna Township.
(to be continued)
Monday, September 06, 2004
MARY, II
The next day, I don't know if it was before or after court, I called Mary and asked her if she would come down to my office.
I always keep my door closed and a few moments later there was a soft knock. "Come in," I said and Mary opened the door and closed it behind her. My office was small and crowded. She took just a step inside. I came from around my desk and we kissed and embraced.
This time of course there was no hesitancy at the unknown, no anxiety that I had read the signs incorrectly. I began to take off her dress but she relieved me of the task.
One of the erotic things about Mary was her coolness in passion. When the rubicon had been crossed with my open-mouthed kiss on the back of her neck the previous day there was just a barely perceptible arch in her back in reaction. She betrayed nothing of what was happening to the person on the other end of the phone line and ended the call in the normal course, if as quickly as possible. It was not the Brad Pitt-I-forget-the-actress's-name scene in Thelma and Louise with bodies flying and furniture breaking.
So too this day in my office. As she undressed, there was a self-assuredness or certainly an unabashedness. I remember thinking on this occasion and others, in one of which we almost got caught having sex, that this imperturbability must have served her well in the crises that come with child-rearing.
I don't remember the details of her undressing, just the last one, where the last segment of garment was removed, in this case her pantyhose from her right foot. She dropped them to the floor. This was my first time seeing Mary's feet. They were nice, pedicured with red polish.
She stood now before me completely nude. I don't remember the exact next step but very shortly I removed everything from the top of my desk and laid her there. Although I had licked her vagina the previous day, this was the first time that it had been exposed as fully as it is when a woman is on her back with her legs spread.
Her vagina was beautiful. Larry Flint once said, in justification for his publications' crotch shots, that there is as much difference--I don't know if he said character--in a woman's vagina as in her face. It was one of Flint's typically outrageous statements and was taken as such but I believe that it is pretty nearly true.
There is such a proliferation of porn these days, in magazines and especially on the internet, that showing the vagina is hardly less shocking for a woman than showing her breasts was in Playboy's early days. Most famously, or notoriously, of course, was Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.
Mary had an "innie." the lips of her vulva were not distended, everything was inside. It's not that one is preferable to another; some men attribute "outies" to older women who have had children. I'm sure there's some correlation there but I think the difference is as much in DNA as in "use" or trauma.
I found Mary's innie vagina very pretty and erotic, especially since it was completely shaved. Her clitoris was small. She was well-lubricated and had a very good scent.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote to his daughter imploring her on matters of hygiene to make sure that she did not give off "disgusting" odors. He clearly did not have vaginal smell in mind but for me especially, and I think for most men, a woman's smells must be clean.
Mary was clean. Her breath was clean, her vagina was clean and wonderfully musky. I performed oral sex on her eagerly and could have done it indefinitely, so do I enjoy it on any woman. I paused briefly to kiss her right foot and suck her toes. To my delight and relief, her feet too were perfectly clean.
I went back to performing oral sex on her but then she pulled my head up and said "come up here." we then had full sex together right on top of my desk.
Her vagina was lubricated and tight and Mary moaned quietly as I thrust. I held her right leg up by the ankle with my left hand. Her left leg drooped over the lip of my desk. Again I kissed and sucked her toes. "Do you know how long I've wanted you to do this," she said.
"Cum," she said in a way and with a look on her face that can only be called "imploring," as is so often used in descriptions like this, and I thrust a few more times and then did. We clenched briefly as I spasmed and then we decoupled. She quickly got up and used a paper towel to wipe away the leaking semen.
I felt awkward as she dressed, it taking a woman longer than a man, but again, everything she did, undressing, wiping herself, getting dressed again, she did with imperturbability.
I don't remember any more of the details except that she then left.
-benjamin harris
The next day, I don't know if it was before or after court, I called Mary and asked her if she would come down to my office.
I always keep my door closed and a few moments later there was a soft knock. "Come in," I said and Mary opened the door and closed it behind her. My office was small and crowded. She took just a step inside. I came from around my desk and we kissed and embraced.
This time of course there was no hesitancy at the unknown, no anxiety that I had read the signs incorrectly. I began to take off her dress but she relieved me of the task.
One of the erotic things about Mary was her coolness in passion. When the rubicon had been crossed with my open-mouthed kiss on the back of her neck the previous day there was just a barely perceptible arch in her back in reaction. She betrayed nothing of what was happening to the person on the other end of the phone line and ended the call in the normal course, if as quickly as possible. It was not the Brad Pitt-I-forget-the-actress's-name scene in Thelma and Louise with bodies flying and furniture breaking.
So too this day in my office. As she undressed, there was a self-assuredness or certainly an unabashedness. I remember thinking on this occasion and others, in one of which we almost got caught having sex, that this imperturbability must have served her well in the crises that come with child-rearing.
I don't remember the details of her undressing, just the last one, where the last segment of garment was removed, in this case her pantyhose from her right foot. She dropped them to the floor. This was my first time seeing Mary's feet. They were nice, pedicured with red polish.
She stood now before me completely nude. I don't remember the exact next step but very shortly I removed everything from the top of my desk and laid her there. Although I had licked her vagina the previous day, this was the first time that it had been exposed as fully as it is when a woman is on her back with her legs spread.
Her vagina was beautiful. Larry Flint once said, in justification for his publications' crotch shots, that there is as much difference--I don't know if he said character--in a woman's vagina as in her face. It was one of Flint's typically outrageous statements and was taken as such but I believe that it is pretty nearly true.
There is such a proliferation of porn these days, in magazines and especially on the internet, that showing the vagina is hardly less shocking for a woman than showing her breasts was in Playboy's early days. Most famously, or notoriously, of course, was Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.
Mary had an "innie." the lips of her vulva were not distended, everything was inside. It's not that one is preferable to another; some men attribute "outies" to older women who have had children. I'm sure there's some correlation there but I think the difference is as much in DNA as in "use" or trauma.
I found Mary's innie vagina very pretty and erotic, especially since it was completely shaved. Her clitoris was small. She was well-lubricated and had a very good scent.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote to his daughter imploring her on matters of hygiene to make sure that she did not give off "disgusting" odors. He clearly did not have vaginal smell in mind but for me especially, and I think for most men, a woman's smells must be clean.
Mary was clean. Her breath was clean, her vagina was clean and wonderfully musky. I performed oral sex on her eagerly and could have done it indefinitely, so do I enjoy it on any woman. I paused briefly to kiss her right foot and suck her toes. To my delight and relief, her feet too were perfectly clean.
I went back to performing oral sex on her but then she pulled my head up and said "come up here." we then had full sex together right on top of my desk.
Her vagina was lubricated and tight and Mary moaned quietly as I thrust. I held her right leg up by the ankle with my left hand. Her left leg drooped over the lip of my desk. Again I kissed and sucked her toes. "Do you know how long I've wanted you to do this," she said.
"Cum," she said in a way and with a look on her face that can only be called "imploring," as is so often used in descriptions like this, and I thrust a few more times and then did. We clenched briefly as I spasmed and then we decoupled. She quickly got up and used a paper towel to wipe away the leaking semen.
I felt awkward as she dressed, it taking a woman longer than a man, but again, everything she did, undressing, wiping herself, getting dressed again, she did with imperturbability.
I don't remember any more of the details except that she then left.
-benjamin harris
MARY, I
Before a trial starts the tension is great. In anticipation of the need, the mind enhances all the senses.
On the morning of the trial my sexual desire was therefore heightened. I knew that Mary would be in her office. After two decades of interacting as co-workers there had been, in the preceding year or two, an unmistakable, continuous and source-unknown attention, in that special way, that she had paid to me: compliments on my appearance, an occasional "Sexy! said to me.
I had never been aroused by her before but her attention made me aroused and made me see the sexually attractive things about her: he wonderful long legs, accentuated by her short skirts and high heels; her middle-of-the-back long brown hair.
So I reciprocated the attention. I would make it a point to stop by her office to make sure she saw me. I became bolder. I would play with her hair. I began to give her a "see you later" kiss on the lips when my brief visits ended. Occasionally during these brief kisses she'd cup the back of my head with her hand, not aggressively holding me there, but just adding to the physical contact.
A couple of times I had determined to make an overt sexual advance. I would hover in the area around her office waiting for "the right moment" but I lost my nerve.
On the morning of this trial I spontaneously decided to act. It was before 9 am. There would be few people about in her area of the office. I went up to her floor and cardswiped my way into her area. Her office was right around the corner.
I stepped into her doorway and she was at her desk on the phone. I walked behind her. She leaned back and I kissed her on the lips. I gathered a bunch of her hair in my hands. I kissed her on the nape of her neck. Then I opened my mouth on the back of her neck. Barely perceptibly her back straightened a little.
fAew moments later she finished her phone call. She stood up. We smiled nervously at each other. I stepped from behind her desk and went to close and lock her door.
I went back to her and we French-kissed. I open-mouth kissed the front of her neck. She held my head between her hands, her fingernails well-manicured and painted bright red, he wedding band on one hand, her engagement ring on the other.
I ran my hands briefly over her dress covering her breasts and then quickly down her torso to the hem of her dress. I lifted up the hem and rubbed her vagina through her pantyhose, white and a nice contrast to the red of her dress.
"Do you know how long I've wanted you to do this?," she said. Her pantyhose were tight around her middle. She had had two children and had some weight there. We disengaged momentarily while I struggled to get them below her crotch. When I had succeeded I put my hand down her panties and rubbed her vagina and clitoris and penetrated her with my finger.
"Umm, you shave your pussy," I said, surprised and more aroused. "umm-HMM," she said knowing the effect.
I took her pantyhose and panties off down to her knees and continued to rub her. I took her right breast out. It was large and full with none of the sagging that comes with child-weaning and aging. I sucked the nipple.
I went down between her legs with my mouth and licked her vagina.
Afraid that someone might come calling on her at any moment, I broke off, French-kissed her, sheepishly smiled and said "see you later" and left.
-Benjamin Harris
Before a trial starts the tension is great. In anticipation of the need, the mind enhances all the senses.
On the morning of the trial my sexual desire was therefore heightened. I knew that Mary would be in her office. After two decades of interacting as co-workers there had been, in the preceding year or two, an unmistakable, continuous and source-unknown attention, in that special way, that she had paid to me: compliments on my appearance, an occasional "Sexy! said to me.
I had never been aroused by her before but her attention made me aroused and made me see the sexually attractive things about her: he wonderful long legs, accentuated by her short skirts and high heels; her middle-of-the-back long brown hair.
So I reciprocated the attention. I would make it a point to stop by her office to make sure she saw me. I became bolder. I would play with her hair. I began to give her a "see you later" kiss on the lips when my brief visits ended. Occasionally during these brief kisses she'd cup the back of my head with her hand, not aggressively holding me there, but just adding to the physical contact.
A couple of times I had determined to make an overt sexual advance. I would hover in the area around her office waiting for "the right moment" but I lost my nerve.
On the morning of this trial I spontaneously decided to act. It was before 9 am. There would be few people about in her area of the office. I went up to her floor and cardswiped my way into her area. Her office was right around the corner.
I stepped into her doorway and she was at her desk on the phone. I walked behind her. She leaned back and I kissed her on the lips. I gathered a bunch of her hair in my hands. I kissed her on the nape of her neck. Then I opened my mouth on the back of her neck. Barely perceptibly her back straightened a little.
fAew moments later she finished her phone call. She stood up. We smiled nervously at each other. I stepped from behind her desk and went to close and lock her door.
I went back to her and we French-kissed. I open-mouth kissed the front of her neck. She held my head between her hands, her fingernails well-manicured and painted bright red, he wedding band on one hand, her engagement ring on the other.
I ran my hands briefly over her dress covering her breasts and then quickly down her torso to the hem of her dress. I lifted up the hem and rubbed her vagina through her pantyhose, white and a nice contrast to the red of her dress.
"Do you know how long I've wanted you to do this?," she said. Her pantyhose were tight around her middle. She had had two children and had some weight there. We disengaged momentarily while I struggled to get them below her crotch. When I had succeeded I put my hand down her panties and rubbed her vagina and clitoris and penetrated her with my finger.
"Umm, you shave your pussy," I said, surprised and more aroused. "umm-HMM," she said knowing the effect.
I took her pantyhose and panties off down to her knees and continued to rub her. I took her right breast out. It was large and full with none of the sagging that comes with child-weaning and aging. I sucked the nipple.
I went down between her legs with my mouth and licked her vagina.
Afraid that someone might come calling on her at any moment, I broke off, French-kissed her, sheepishly smiled and said "see you later" and left.
-Benjamin Harris
when my son was born i used to hold him and sing louis armstrong's "what a wonderful world" substituting "boy" for "world" in my elation.
he has always been my golden-haired golden boy and has the sweetest most kindly disposition.
but he's 15 now and for the last couple years dad has NOT been cool. attempts to engage him in conversation are met with monosyllabic grunts. his underperformance in school has us constantly at odds.
on thursday he broke a bone in his hand skateboarding. i took him to the emergency room at 9 pm and we left at 3 am. not a whole lot of bonding potential there. but a bonding experience it turned into.
i didn't have work on friday, my position was immutable, so i just made the most of it. in the waiting room a heavyset, big-bosomed woman waddled in. i leaned over and whispered to my son, "emergency breast reduction surgery." he cracked up.
i had brought some books and two decks of cards, a poker deck and an uno set we played those. in our late-night punch-drunkness we played a game where one of us had the poker deck and the other tried to guess which card was on the bottom. we went through the whole deck that way, card by card.
i swear, before i became too tired to concentrate, there were times when i just KNEW what card was next. in my first try i correctly guessed four of the 58 (two jokers), including two in a row. maybe that doestn't sound impressive but consider the odds. mind over matter maybe.
it wasn't my esp though that made the night. it was the fun we had together and my delight in seeing the innocent surprise in his face when the blind pig found the acorn, the serene goodness in his laugh when he "just missed" guessing the card correctly, e.g. guessing a five of diamonds when the card was a five of hearts.
we were shuttled from room to room as per medical school's "how to drive a patient nuts 101" procedure and ended up in examination room #3 for three hours. in addition to playing the guessing game we started playing with the medical equipment in there. they had one of those scopes that they use to look in your eyes and ears. we did that. the door to the room was open and he would reach for the scope or something else and then hear footsteps nearby and instantly get the "hand caught in the cookie jar" look on his face. i laughed hard and so did he. he's such a good young man that even something as innocuous as that stirs guilt that his personality can't hide.
we started to get destructive impulses as a guerilla tactic to get back at our captors. stck one of the ear probes in our anus and then put it back. more juvenile laughter.
there was a liquid soap dispenser by the door. i gave it a couple pumps and squirted it on the floor right at the entrance to the room. it was very slippery. we imagined the doctor coming in and slipping and falling on it. more laughter. but my good-hearted boy cleaned it up with a towel, afraid that the doctor might in fact slip on it.
they had given him an ice bag to put on his hand but the insulation prevented the thing from getting much below 50 degrees. we laughed at the absurdity of that.
as we were leaving the nurse asked us if we wanted a new ice bag. deadpan i said, "no, we're fine but that thing was great. it really helped." i caught my son's face in the reflection off the glass entryway. he was smiling, stifling a laugh and shaking his head at his dad's mischievevousness.
two days later we were in the car together and he said, "we had fun at the doctor's office." yes we did. that comment'll carry me through quite a few future bumps in the road.
-benjamin harris
he has always been my golden-haired golden boy and has the sweetest most kindly disposition.
but he's 15 now and for the last couple years dad has NOT been cool. attempts to engage him in conversation are met with monosyllabic grunts. his underperformance in school has us constantly at odds.
on thursday he broke a bone in his hand skateboarding. i took him to the emergency room at 9 pm and we left at 3 am. not a whole lot of bonding potential there. but a bonding experience it turned into.
i didn't have work on friday, my position was immutable, so i just made the most of it. in the waiting room a heavyset, big-bosomed woman waddled in. i leaned over and whispered to my son, "emergency breast reduction surgery." he cracked up.
i had brought some books and two decks of cards, a poker deck and an uno set we played those. in our late-night punch-drunkness we played a game where one of us had the poker deck and the other tried to guess which card was on the bottom. we went through the whole deck that way, card by card.
i swear, before i became too tired to concentrate, there were times when i just KNEW what card was next. in my first try i correctly guessed four of the 58 (two jokers), including two in a row. maybe that doestn't sound impressive but consider the odds. mind over matter maybe.
it wasn't my esp though that made the night. it was the fun we had together and my delight in seeing the innocent surprise in his face when the blind pig found the acorn, the serene goodness in his laugh when he "just missed" guessing the card correctly, e.g. guessing a five of diamonds when the card was a five of hearts.
we were shuttled from room to room as per medical school's "how to drive a patient nuts 101" procedure and ended up in examination room #3 for three hours. in addition to playing the guessing game we started playing with the medical equipment in there. they had one of those scopes that they use to look in your eyes and ears. we did that. the door to the room was open and he would reach for the scope or something else and then hear footsteps nearby and instantly get the "hand caught in the cookie jar" look on his face. i laughed hard and so did he. he's such a good young man that even something as innocuous as that stirs guilt that his personality can't hide.
we started to get destructive impulses as a guerilla tactic to get back at our captors. stck one of the ear probes in our anus and then put it back. more juvenile laughter.
there was a liquid soap dispenser by the door. i gave it a couple pumps and squirted it on the floor right at the entrance to the room. it was very slippery. we imagined the doctor coming in and slipping and falling on it. more laughter. but my good-hearted boy cleaned it up with a towel, afraid that the doctor might in fact slip on it.
they had given him an ice bag to put on his hand but the insulation prevented the thing from getting much below 50 degrees. we laughed at the absurdity of that.
as we were leaving the nurse asked us if we wanted a new ice bag. deadpan i said, "no, we're fine but that thing was great. it really helped." i caught my son's face in the reflection off the glass entryway. he was smiling, stifling a laugh and shaking his head at his dad's mischievevousness.
two days later we were in the car together and he said, "we had fun at the doctor's office." yes we did. that comment'll carry me through quite a few future bumps in the road.
-benjamin harris
bad, surprising (to me) for the democrats. two post-gop convention polls have bush up DOUBLE DIGITS. kerry got NO bounce out of the demos convention. i, and most of the cognescenti, chalked that up to the unusual extent to which voters had made up their minds this year. polarized electorate, etc. not so apparently.
heard on npr that every candidate who has led in the polls on labor day went on to win in november. but no candidate who had been the leading money-raiser in the year preceeding an election had ever lost his party's nomination. until howard dean this year. so this is not a "normal" year.
still, big meeting coming up in the kerry campaign supposedly leading to a "reorganization." after iowa kerry fired his campaign head and bought in bob shrum. although long a top strategist, shrum had never won the "big one," i think the nomination, not the presidency. so shrum maybe out.
-benjamin harris
heard on npr that every candidate who has led in the polls on labor day went on to win in november. but no candidate who had been the leading money-raiser in the year preceeding an election had ever lost his party's nomination. until howard dean this year. so this is not a "normal" year.
still, big meeting coming up in the kerry campaign supposedly leading to a "reorganization." after iowa kerry fired his campaign head and bought in bob shrum. although long a top strategist, shrum had never won the "big one," i think the nomination, not the presidency. so shrum maybe out.
-benjamin harris
i am getting hurricane fatigue
i am getting hurricane fatigue. frances made me tense and then petered out. now ivan is in the caribbean and could turn into a category 5. PLEASE go somewhere else.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
FOOTFALLS
FOOTFALLS
it is 10:00 on a sunday morning. i can hear my neighbor above me walking around her apartment in her bare feet. her steps are more forceful than morning's first, tentative, reluctant steps. she's been up awhile, thinking of and preparing for the day's activities.
i think that my neighbor is young and beautiful. there is one such woman in my building and i was in an elevator, diffused with her perfume, with her one time and when i got off on my floor she continued riding it up. but i am on the 4th floor of an 8-story building. i remember my high school french teacher imagining the beautiful woman behind the beautiful voice on the radio and the woman turning out to be kate smith.
so i prefer my imagination.
i imagine my neighbor still wearing her night clothes, panties and a little tee shirt. women are so wonderful. so charming, so fascinating. the most charming and fascinating of them are those that have little awareness of the effect on men of their unselfconscious actions.
were i able to observe my neighbor now, i would be aroused by the flesh and the undress but also, really, my soul would be touched and my curiosity enlivened by her grace, her lack of self-awareness, her charm--in all, by the allure and mystery of her femininity.
i hear different footfalls from my neighbor on saturday nights. her soft bare-foot step is transformed into the familiar click-clack of high heels. i hear the outer metal screen security door on her apartment shutting behind her and i hear her footfalls no more.
-benjamin harris
it is 10:00 on a sunday morning. i can hear my neighbor above me walking around her apartment in her bare feet. her steps are more forceful than morning's first, tentative, reluctant steps. she's been up awhile, thinking of and preparing for the day's activities.
i think that my neighbor is young and beautiful. there is one such woman in my building and i was in an elevator, diffused with her perfume, with her one time and when i got off on my floor she continued riding it up. but i am on the 4th floor of an 8-story building. i remember my high school french teacher imagining the beautiful woman behind the beautiful voice on the radio and the woman turning out to be kate smith.
so i prefer my imagination.
i imagine my neighbor still wearing her night clothes, panties and a little tee shirt. women are so wonderful. so charming, so fascinating. the most charming and fascinating of them are those that have little awareness of the effect on men of their unselfconscious actions.
were i able to observe my neighbor now, i would be aroused by the flesh and the undress but also, really, my soul would be touched and my curiosity enlivened by her grace, her lack of self-awareness, her charm--in all, by the allure and mystery of her femininity.
i hear different footfalls from my neighbor on saturday nights. her soft bare-foot step is transformed into the familiar click-clack of high heels. i hear the outer metal screen security door on her apartment shutting behind her and i hear her footfalls no more.
-benjamin harris
Monday, August 23, 2004
speaking of underdogs...
CONGRATULATIONS to erika ebbel for winning the miss massachusetts title. ms. ebbel will compete in the miss america pageant in september.
why an underdog? ms. ebbel just graduated from mit. yes, MIT, as in the massachusetts institute of technology, where you're as likely to find a miss america contestant as in the women's jail.
-benjamin harris
CONGRATULATIONS to erika ebbel for winning the miss massachusetts title. ms. ebbel will compete in the miss america pageant in september.
why an underdog? ms. ebbel just graduated from mit. yes, MIT, as in the massachusetts institute of technology, where you're as likely to find a miss america contestant as in the women's jail.
-benjamin harris
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
UNDERDOG SUPPORTERS
UNDERDOG SUPPORTERS
about a year ago the annoying-voiced npr sports commentator frank deford did a piece in which he professed his favoritism of "second" universities, those institutions that are forever damned to live in the shadow of their larger "university of" brethren and which are identified as second-rate in academics, sports performance and fan support by their "state" suffix. thus mississippi state to the university of mississippi, and so on.
the "state" label is not always fail-proof in identifying "second" universities, ohio state and penn state being the preeminent examples. but more often than not it is.
deford's point struck home with me, an inveterate supporter of the underdog. i am after all one who, while floundering about for a soccer team to support after my mls favorite went under, latched onto none other than manchester city, the east end rival to one of the most famous and most wealthy soccer clubs in the world, manchester united.
the psychology behind such volitional masochism i leave to another day, but widespread it undeniably is to support the underdog in competition.
and so, carrying deford's standard forward into battle, i hereby offer this list of underdogs that i, and i urge all readers of this page to, pledge undying loyalty to, especially when they play the hoi-poloi "universities of..."
in random order they are:
1. WASHINGTON STATE. the apple bowl trophy belongs in pullman.
2. OREGON STATE. their nickname is the beavers.
3. MISSISSIPPI STATE. one of my favorites. a real cow college whose fans ring real cow-bells. upon winning the egg bowl their black players should be allowed to take liberties with the southern belle cheerleaders of "ole miss."
4. IOWA STATE. i really like iowa. the hawkeyes, a long downtrodden program revived by hayden fry but the cyclones are clearly second-fiddle in the state and their uniforms are like something out of the xfl.
5. MICHIGAN STATE. nick saben left because he said he didn't want to continually beat his head against a wall recruiting against a "university of..." u.m. has the big house, a real grass field, a glorious fight song and great helmets. m.s.u's dominant color is green and their helments are adorned with a white "S."
6. UTAH STATE. hell, these guys are THIRD-class citizens in the land of 10,000 virgins behind b.y.u. and the university of. what the hell's their nickname, the utes? or is that the university of?
7. FRESNO STATE. when u.s.c. deigned to play the bulldogs in some third tier bowl a few years ago, their fans carried signs saying "my maid went to fresno state." postscript: the maids beat the trojans.
8. NEW MEXICO STATE. same thing as with utah state. are they the lobos or is that the university of? it is this kind of anonymity that makes for a true underdog.
9. IDAHO STATE. in a small state, like new mexico, utah, mississippi, or idaho, it must be particularly punishing to go to the state school.
10. KANSAS STATE. the only controversial choice on this list. bill snyder transformed this worst-program-in-the-history-of-college-tackle-football into a perrenial powerhouse topped off by last year's quinella of wins over nebraska and then, shockingly, oklahoma in the big 12, sorry big XII, championship game.
further, the university of SUCKS in tackle football. almost always has. never mind. underdogs can win sometimes and it's said that recruiting a blue-chipper to go to manhattan, kansas is as hard as it gets.
u.k. has got one of the storied basketball programs in the sport, james naismith, and they get the best and the brightest of the state. "rock-chalk jayhawk!" stick it in your ear.
11. NORTH CAROLINA STATE. this is almost the identical situation as in michigan with u.m. and m.s.u. u.n.c. has got cool powder blue unis and the greatest facilities that tobacco road's drug money can buy. n.c. state's got red helmets with and "S" on them.
12. EAST CAROLINA. like the station occupied by utah state, the pirates are third fiddle in the state, have a terrible academic reputation and hideous purple and gold uniforms. GO PIRATES!
13. UTEP. they have inherited the mantle of worst program in history since kansas state's resurrection. they are every team's choice for homecoming opponent. but, when they were texas western, they knocked off adolph rupp's kentucky wildcats to win the national championship in basketball. did it with an all black team against all white u.k.
14. OKLAHOMA STATE. the 'boys have had flirtations with greatness. thurman thomas, barry sanders. but they are continually outrecruited and blasted by their betters in norman. last year their coach said before the big game, "there's going to be a great football team and a very good football team playing on saturday and we're going to find out which is which. " o.u. won by something like 63-14
15. COLORADO STATE. sonny lubick is a fine coach and he has made this a respectable program. plus they give as good as they get in their games against the c.u. rapists.
that's all folks. let's all get on these schools websites and order their tee shirts.
-benjamin harris,
president, united underdogs of america
about a year ago the annoying-voiced npr sports commentator frank deford did a piece in which he professed his favoritism of "second" universities, those institutions that are forever damned to live in the shadow of their larger "university of" brethren and which are identified as second-rate in academics, sports performance and fan support by their "state" suffix. thus mississippi state to the university of mississippi, and so on.
the "state" label is not always fail-proof in identifying "second" universities, ohio state and penn state being the preeminent examples. but more often than not it is.
deford's point struck home with me, an inveterate supporter of the underdog. i am after all one who, while floundering about for a soccer team to support after my mls favorite went under, latched onto none other than manchester city, the east end rival to one of the most famous and most wealthy soccer clubs in the world, manchester united.
the psychology behind such volitional masochism i leave to another day, but widespread it undeniably is to support the underdog in competition.
and so, carrying deford's standard forward into battle, i hereby offer this list of underdogs that i, and i urge all readers of this page to, pledge undying loyalty to, especially when they play the hoi-poloi "universities of..."
in random order they are:
1. WASHINGTON STATE. the apple bowl trophy belongs in pullman.
2. OREGON STATE. their nickname is the beavers.
3. MISSISSIPPI STATE. one of my favorites. a real cow college whose fans ring real cow-bells. upon winning the egg bowl their black players should be allowed to take liberties with the southern belle cheerleaders of "ole miss."
4. IOWA STATE. i really like iowa. the hawkeyes, a long downtrodden program revived by hayden fry but the cyclones are clearly second-fiddle in the state and their uniforms are like something out of the xfl.
5. MICHIGAN STATE. nick saben left because he said he didn't want to continually beat his head against a wall recruiting against a "university of..." u.m. has the big house, a real grass field, a glorious fight song and great helmets. m.s.u's dominant color is green and their helments are adorned with a white "S."
6. UTAH STATE. hell, these guys are THIRD-class citizens in the land of 10,000 virgins behind b.y.u. and the university of. what the hell's their nickname, the utes? or is that the university of?
7. FRESNO STATE. when u.s.c. deigned to play the bulldogs in some third tier bowl a few years ago, their fans carried signs saying "my maid went to fresno state." postscript: the maids beat the trojans.
8. NEW MEXICO STATE. same thing as with utah state. are they the lobos or is that the university of? it is this kind of anonymity that makes for a true underdog.
9. IDAHO STATE. in a small state, like new mexico, utah, mississippi, or idaho, it must be particularly punishing to go to the state school.
10. KANSAS STATE. the only controversial choice on this list. bill snyder transformed this worst-program-in-the-history-of-college-tackle-football into a perrenial powerhouse topped off by last year's quinella of wins over nebraska and then, shockingly, oklahoma in the big 12, sorry big XII, championship game.
further, the university of SUCKS in tackle football. almost always has. never mind. underdogs can win sometimes and it's said that recruiting a blue-chipper to go to manhattan, kansas is as hard as it gets.
u.k. has got one of the storied basketball programs in the sport, james naismith, and they get the best and the brightest of the state. "rock-chalk jayhawk!" stick it in your ear.
11. NORTH CAROLINA STATE. this is almost the identical situation as in michigan with u.m. and m.s.u. u.n.c. has got cool powder blue unis and the greatest facilities that tobacco road's drug money can buy. n.c. state's got red helmets with and "S" on them.
12. EAST CAROLINA. like the station occupied by utah state, the pirates are third fiddle in the state, have a terrible academic reputation and hideous purple and gold uniforms. GO PIRATES!
13. UTEP. they have inherited the mantle of worst program in history since kansas state's resurrection. they are every team's choice for homecoming opponent. but, when they were texas western, they knocked off adolph rupp's kentucky wildcats to win the national championship in basketball. did it with an all black team against all white u.k.
14. OKLAHOMA STATE. the 'boys have had flirtations with greatness. thurman thomas, barry sanders. but they are continually outrecruited and blasted by their betters in norman. last year their coach said before the big game, "there's going to be a great football team and a very good football team playing on saturday and we're going to find out which is which. " o.u. won by something like 63-14
15. COLORADO STATE. sonny lubick is a fine coach and he has made this a respectable program. plus they give as good as they get in their games against the c.u. rapists.
that's all folks. let's all get on these schools websites and order their tee shirts.
-benjamin harris,
president, united underdogs of america
Friday, July 30, 2004
FUTBOL IN AMERICA
chelsea and a.s. roma drew 25,000 in pittsburgh last night.
manchester united and glasgow celtic drew 55,000 in philly.
i have a modest proposal for major league soccer.
include some of the top european and south american teams in the mls playoffs and get one or two of the best mls teams invited to participate in the champions league.
"harris, you're nuts! NUTS! NUTS! why would the european teams do it and risk their prestige? why would mls risk being unmasked by 6-0 outcomes?"
think about it for a minute.
(1) there IS, and always has been, a market for top flight soccer in the u.s.: the cosmos, rowdies, the u.s. women's team's win over china, etc., etc. people just ain't gonna turn out for the equivalent of triple a or double a ball just 'cause it has fifa's imprimatur as "first division."
(2) mls is in a sisyphean rut of mediocrity. they are not taken seriously, they never WILL be taken seriously until they prove themselves in REAL matches--not friendlies--against the top world teams.
(a) mls is literally building in this mediocrity with this mindless craze for soccer-specific stadia. it started in columbus and then l.a. dallas has one in the works as do the metro stars and the fire and colorado just got one approved.
what's the matter with that?
they all seat 20,000-25,000. mls wants to build in "intimacy," "tradition;" what they're building in is the financial impossibility of ever becoming truly big league.
(3) european soccer teams aren't the girlie-men that sports teams are in the u.s., afraid of taking on an inferior opponent and risking a loss of prestige, a la the university of florida refusing to play florida state until the legislature intervened, same thing with the university of kentucky and louisville, etc.
in england the fa cup is open to every pro soccer team in the country, like the old indiana high school basketball tournament. so you get arsenal playing matches that count against podunk united and the like. they ain't skaed.
(4) not that man-u and real madrid need the cash but capitalism is all 'bout "expanding markets." man-u has already signed a joint promotional arrangement with the yankees. america is almost as lucrative an untapped soccer market as china was for coca-cola and marlboro.
(5) mls WILL suffer some embarassing results. so did the afl in super bowls I and II. but just as that was the only way for the afl to gain credibility, this is the only way for mls.
mls does have some real world-class talent. the u.s. national team, heavily stocked with mls players, has been consistently ranked around 10th in the world. last time i checked they were
(and have often been recently) one spot ahead of the english!
this is all about "upside." there WILL be some upsets, just as there are every year in the ncaa basketball tournament. some 15 seed knocks off some 2. happens every year.
IMAGINE if the galaxy beat real madrid!!! forget the "intimacy" of the home depot center. they'd have to hold the galacians next match in the rose bowl to accomodate the crowd.
...
and now, back to more realistic things, like "the war is with islam."
-benjamin harris
chelsea and a.s. roma drew 25,000 in pittsburgh last night.
manchester united and glasgow celtic drew 55,000 in philly.
i have a modest proposal for major league soccer.
include some of the top european and south american teams in the mls playoffs and get one or two of the best mls teams invited to participate in the champions league.
"harris, you're nuts! NUTS! NUTS! why would the european teams do it and risk their prestige? why would mls risk being unmasked by 6-0 outcomes?"
think about it for a minute.
(1) there IS, and always has been, a market for top flight soccer in the u.s.: the cosmos, rowdies, the u.s. women's team's win over china, etc., etc. people just ain't gonna turn out for the equivalent of triple a or double a ball just 'cause it has fifa's imprimatur as "first division."
(2) mls is in a sisyphean rut of mediocrity. they are not taken seriously, they never WILL be taken seriously until they prove themselves in REAL matches--not friendlies--against the top world teams.
(a) mls is literally building in this mediocrity with this mindless craze for soccer-specific stadia. it started in columbus and then l.a. dallas has one in the works as do the metro stars and the fire and colorado just got one approved.
what's the matter with that?
they all seat 20,000-25,000. mls wants to build in "intimacy," "tradition;" what they're building in is the financial impossibility of ever becoming truly big league.
(3) european soccer teams aren't the girlie-men that sports teams are in the u.s., afraid of taking on an inferior opponent and risking a loss of prestige, a la the university of florida refusing to play florida state until the legislature intervened, same thing with the university of kentucky and louisville, etc.
in england the fa cup is open to every pro soccer team in the country, like the old indiana high school basketball tournament. so you get arsenal playing matches that count against podunk united and the like. they ain't skaed.
(4) not that man-u and real madrid need the cash but capitalism is all 'bout "expanding markets." man-u has already signed a joint promotional arrangement with the yankees. america is almost as lucrative an untapped soccer market as china was for coca-cola and marlboro.
(5) mls WILL suffer some embarassing results. so did the afl in super bowls I and II. but just as that was the only way for the afl to gain credibility, this is the only way for mls.
mls does have some real world-class talent. the u.s. national team, heavily stocked with mls players, has been consistently ranked around 10th in the world. last time i checked they were
(and have often been recently) one spot ahead of the english!
this is all about "upside." there WILL be some upsets, just as there are every year in the ncaa basketball tournament. some 15 seed knocks off some 2. happens every year.
IMAGINE if the galaxy beat real madrid!!! forget the "intimacy" of the home depot center. they'd have to hold the galacians next match in the rose bowl to accomodate the crowd.
...
and now, back to more realistic things, like "the war is with islam."
-benjamin harris
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
TRUE CRIME STORIES
TRUE CRIME STORIES
in court yesterday waiting for the end of calendar and the start of my trial, a wretched combination of boredom and anxiety. arraignments, miscellaneous reports on the status of cases, my mind drifting from the banal chatter of the calendar call to my trial.
former judge tom johnson addressing the court on the status of one of his clients. "...and then two DUDES jump in my client's car and when everything's said and done, there are a bunch of stolen checks, money orders and bags of marijuana..."
tom delivers his factual proffer absolutely straight-faced, his client standing next to him doing his best impersonation of the wrongfully-accused. i laugh inside but almost audibly, a smile crosses judge miranda's face.
i step out for a second to get a drink of water or something. i return a minute later, "...so as you can see judge, arthur here was the victim of circumstances..."
-benjamin harris
in court yesterday waiting for the end of calendar and the start of my trial, a wretched combination of boredom and anxiety. arraignments, miscellaneous reports on the status of cases, my mind drifting from the banal chatter of the calendar call to my trial.
former judge tom johnson addressing the court on the status of one of his clients. "...and then two DUDES jump in my client's car and when everything's said and done, there are a bunch of stolen checks, money orders and bags of marijuana..."
tom delivers his factual proffer absolutely straight-faced, his client standing next to him doing his best impersonation of the wrongfully-accused. i laugh inside but almost audibly, a smile crosses judge miranda's face.
i step out for a second to get a drink of water or something. i return a minute later, "...so as you can see judge, arthur here was the victim of circumstances..."
-benjamin harris
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
started again to read john bunyan's "pilgrim's progress." don't know why it's considered such a classic of literature. it is neither a classic nor literature in my opinion.
the first time i started reading it, a few months ago, i got bored with its religious theme, and depressed that it seemed so like sayed qutb's "in the shade of the koran."
even on two adderal yesterday i found it the same in this second attempt at reading only more so.
then i read in the introduction that it had been widely read in some islamic circles. ugh.
the koran, "shade" and pilgrim's progress really do have a lot of similarities, very allegorical/metaphorical, very "fundamentalist," very intolerant of "unbelievers," totally accepting of the infallibality of "the book," very totalitarian.
bunyan says, as does the koran, that it is better to leave one's wife and children in their unbelief and pursue the path of holiness than stay with them and live in error.
like muhammad, bunyan was persecuted, jailed, and has the (some) victims rage against his persecutors, all cloaked in what is meant to be the soothing light of divine wisdom.
like muhammad, bunyan seems to me likely to be diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic grandiose-type and anti-social personality by today's psychiatrists.
made me think: how many women have written books like this?
is it only men who have seen themselves as the offspring of god, chosen by Him personally to deliver His message to the world?
pilgrim's progress also was a splash of cold water in the face for my view of the relative benignty of christianity. we have become so pluralistic, so ecumenical in the west that few of the even the hardest line religious hard liners would write something like pilgrim's progress today.
reinforced my disgust with religion generally also. the most murderous thought disorder in human history.
most of the time i honestly respect people of non-intrusive religious faith. "faith" itself, in general, is a good thing i think. i accept kierkegaard's point of the limits of human cognition and the necessity to take the "leap of faith" that SOMETHING must/might be beyond its ken.
but then i read stuff like the koran, "shade" and "pilgrim's progress" and i just get so disgusted and angry.
man, i'm really in trouble if there really is a god.
-benjamin harris
the first time i started reading it, a few months ago, i got bored with its religious theme, and depressed that it seemed so like sayed qutb's "in the shade of the koran."
even on two adderal yesterday i found it the same in this second attempt at reading only more so.
then i read in the introduction that it had been widely read in some islamic circles. ugh.
the koran, "shade" and pilgrim's progress really do have a lot of similarities, very allegorical/metaphorical, very "fundamentalist," very intolerant of "unbelievers," totally accepting of the infallibality of "the book," very totalitarian.
bunyan says, as does the koran, that it is better to leave one's wife and children in their unbelief and pursue the path of holiness than stay with them and live in error.
like muhammad, bunyan was persecuted, jailed, and has the (some) victims rage against his persecutors, all cloaked in what is meant to be the soothing light of divine wisdom.
like muhammad, bunyan seems to me likely to be diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic grandiose-type and anti-social personality by today's psychiatrists.
made me think: how many women have written books like this?
is it only men who have seen themselves as the offspring of god, chosen by Him personally to deliver His message to the world?
pilgrim's progress also was a splash of cold water in the face for my view of the relative benignty of christianity. we have become so pluralistic, so ecumenical in the west that few of the even the hardest line religious hard liners would write something like pilgrim's progress today.
reinforced my disgust with religion generally also. the most murderous thought disorder in human history.
most of the time i honestly respect people of non-intrusive religious faith. "faith" itself, in general, is a good thing i think. i accept kierkegaard's point of the limits of human cognition and the necessity to take the "leap of faith" that SOMETHING must/might be beyond its ken.
but then i read stuff like the koran, "shade" and "pilgrim's progress" and i just get so disgusted and angry.
man, i'm really in trouble if there really is a god.
-benjamin harris
Sunday, July 04, 2004
"...i only thought to make
i knew not what; nor did i undertake
thereby to please my neighbour; no, not i,
i did it my own self to gratify.
neither did i but vacant seasons spend
in this my scribble; nor did i intend
but to divert myself in doing this,
from worser thoughts, which make me do amiss."
-john bunyan, "the pilgrims's progress."
i knew not what; nor did i undertake
thereby to please my neighbour; no, not i,
i did it my own self to gratify.
neither did i but vacant seasons spend
in this my scribble; nor did i intend
but to divert myself in doing this,
from worser thoughts, which make me do amiss."
-john bunyan, "the pilgrims's progress."
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
ON, "THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS," II
i registered my objections to what little doctrine or prescription there was in CLASH in "clash I." that was accepting the usefulness of huntington's civilizational map-redrawing.
i don't accept that either.
samuel huntington has long been an eminent scholar and was a foreign policy advisor in jimmy carter's administration. he is a serious man. he thinks big thoughts. he has what yogi berra would call "deep depth."
there is little if any of this on view in the descriptive portion of CLASH which makes up eleven of the book's twelve chapters.
the book is one of those dark malthusian works in which subtlety and complexity are beaten into submission to fit "the model." it's in the vein of paul kennedy's RISE AND FALL OF THE GREAT POWERS of the '80's which predicted the end of american economic supremacy and the ascendancy of the japanese.
it is a high-brow version of those MEGATREND books by whoever that knucklehead was, john naismith, james naismith, whatever.
it also reveals more about huntington himself, the way he thinks, what his prejudices are, what his world view is, than it does about how the world is actually is.
descriptively, CLASH is simple, brilliant but simple. if you read the original FOREIGN AFFAIRS article or even if you've talked to someone who has for 15 minutes you get the point.
i think the book fits well in describing america's relationship to islam. i think we are in a clash there but huntington divides the whole world up into different civilizations. for the record these are:
-the west
-orthodoxy (russia, et al)
-the sinic
-the japanese
-the latin american
-the islamic
-the hindu
-the buddhist
-the african (maybe)
it is a fair summary of the book to say that huntington views these as clashing civilizations also. huntingtonists would assert that that is a distortion, and obviously not all the civilizations are at present--nor may they be in the future--in conflict with one another, but the clear point is that these civilizations and their interests are so different that they will inevitably clash with each other at some time over something. this does not necessarily mean civilizational war but clashes at least.
these clashes are made all the more intractable because as huntington wrote in the original CLASH article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS, "a communist today can become a capitalist tomorrow, but an armenian can never become a turk."
world history certainly suggests that this may be correct. humanity indeed has a very bloody history but huntington's world view is very dark indeed, darker i think, than it is useful to view it as.
in the first chapter, under the pretense of surveying the different ways in which the post-cold war world has been viewed by OTHERS, huntington quotes from a novel called DEAD LAGOON by michael dibdin:
"there can be no true friends without true enemies.
unless we hate what we are not, we cannot love what
we are."
that is shocking, and huntingtonists would say "he's not saying that's what his view is, in fact he specifically introduces the paragraph from which that excerpt is taken by saying 'one grim weltanschauung for this new era was well expressed by the venetian nationalist demogogue' in dibdin's book."
that is apologia however, not truth, because on the next page huntington does not quote from a book of fiction, he states as his own view:
"we know who we are only when we know who we are
not and often only when we know whom we are against."
huntington's entire world view as expressed in CLASH is of a world in conflict.
fukuyama
i challenge the most basic civilizational categorization by huntington. i have argued here previously and do so now again, that there is no "western civilization" that has geopolitical or doctrinal meaning.
huntington conflates europe and the united states and their interests. i separate them.
his argument and mine are easy to defend. his is that america is the product of european thought, settled by european peoples.
mine is that although that is true, america broke away from europe demonstrably, we fought two wars against england itself, our "mother country" for heavens's sake, we have fought two world wars with european states, wars which huntington classifies as essentially "western civil wars."
from the perspective of the other side of the atlantic, the european union was not conceived as a proto-alliance with the united states but as a counterweight to it.
our culture rankles europe in the same way, although not with as much violence, as it does islam.
it is tempting to say in the post-cold war era that the atlanticist military alliance of nato should be perpetuated into this new era. in fact that is what huntington says. in fact, as mentioned in "clash I" he argues for expanding it to other western countries in europe.
i think he is dead wrong, wrong, wrong about that and have argued it previously.
nato was a military alliance for the cold war. it made sense then to obligate each alliance member to the defense of the other if attacked by the other half of that bi-polar world. an attack on germany--or france or england--would have and should have resulted in a combined response by the other nato member states.
in like manner the united states had military treaties with south korea against aggression from the north, with taiwan against aggression from the prc.
the problem is WE STILL HAVE THOSE TREATIES! we are still treaty-bound to defend those countries if attacked even though the raison d'etre for the treaties, the threat from the soviet union and from communist china, DON'T EXIST ANYMORE!
what the hell sense does that make?
further, huntington would EXTEND these treaties to, as he says on page 312, "the western states of central europe...the baltic republics, slovenia, and croatia."
and in fact we've done that. we are now obligated to defend poland against attack FROM ANYONE.
does the american public realize any of this?
huntington, completely contrary to american foreign policy history, common sense, and present realities, would extend our foreign policy obligations far beyond our shores and our national security interests. all this because we are "kin" with these other states in the civilization of "the west."
BULLshit.
huntington says that the western civilization is unique, not universal but unique. in fact it is the AMERICAN civilization that is unique, although i agree with him that it should not be presumed to be universal (it may be though).
huntington urges a rigid construct and responses by "the west" in response to clashes with other civilizations.
in fact, it is precisely because america has never been caught in rigid, ossified constructs of any kind, much less in foreign affairs, that we have survived and flourished.
our federalist system grounded us philosophically in non-involvement in others affairs, our "rugged individualist" psychology did the same, our geographic isolation has helped us avoid the "entangling alliances" that woodrow wilson warned against.
for these reasons and more, america has retained a diplomatic nimbleness that has allowed us to:
-become the closest of allies with the england, the country we separated from and fought two wars against.
-become the closest of allies with germany who we fought two wars against.
-become the closest of allies with japan who we dropped atomic bombs on.
-waited out the collapse of our cold war mortal enemy, the soviet union, and have become friends, if not the closest allies with its successor, russia
-waited out the less dangerous standoff with the prc. the prc has not ceased to exist as has the soviet union but it is no longer the communist state that it was under mao and our relations with it have reflected that change.
just these examples illustrate (1) the fallacy of huntington's "western civilization" fantasy (2) the fallacy that we can not form alliances with states from other civilizations (russia, japan, china)and (3)the disastrous policy consequences to accepting huntington's dark division of the world.
in huntingtonia, we will always be in some civilizational opposition to russia. never mind that the soviet union has ceased to exist, never mind that russia has at times been an important american ally since 1989, never mind that it is now part of the g-8, never mind that, with whatever difficulty, it is trying really hard to become democratic and market-oriented economically.
for huntington this is all pap. russia can never become western. it will always be orthodox. biology is not destiny, culture is destiny. culture, a creation of man, can never be undone. once created it is forever.
similarly, he opposes the expansion of the european union to include turkey because it is a state from another civilization and hence it can never be made to fit.
the world is not like that as the examples of germany, japan, russia, china, etc. show. people, countries, civilizations can change if only to be less rigid and more tolerant of others.
the world is also too complex for one state, much less the most powerful state, to be forever locked into a rigid construct of "civilizational" alliance. as argued here in "international federalism," the united states should maintain shifting alliances as our national security requires: with israel and perhaps england in the middle east, with russia in its own clash with islam, with all of the nuclear powers in all the civilizations to reduce nuclear stockpiles and enforce non-proliferation. and etc.
huntington's prescription is not for how to deal with conflict if it occurs. structurally, he BUILDS IN conflict. he divides the world up into eight, maybe nine, clashing civilizations, he urges alliances whose only purpose is to set up an us vs. them posture, he wishes to expand those alliances which will heighten the chance of conflict, he would re-do the u.n. security council so that all the major civilizations would be represented, thus again building in conflict in the one world organization that is to prevent, not just manage, conflict.
it is not to "our western heritage" that america should return in meeting the challenges of the post-cold war world. it is to our own uniquely american heritage, of federalist acceptance of diversity and tolerance, non-involvement in the affairs of others, intellectual modesty over the applicability of our experience elsewhere, realpolitik realization of the dangerousness of entangling alliances, and generosity, both of spirit and of treasure.
it is the american--not the western or the singaporean (!?)--experiment in all these matters that gives hope that there may be a "thin" connective tissue among civilizations that allows mankind to transcend differences and avoid clashes.
-benjamin harris
Sunday, June 20, 2004
ON "THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS," I
ah, man. just finished CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS (the book). what a disappointment.
i have repeatedly held up the "clash" model as the one through which we should view our conflict with the islamic world. i still hold up "clash" as that model but as to so much else in the book...
first, we need a new DOCTRINE to replace george kennan's "containment" that guided us through the cold war. a doctrine guides future action. it is not so much descriptive as prescriptive. at least it's both.
it is interesting and perhaps telling that while huntington writes of the cold war world view he never mentions the containment doctrine and never once even mentions kennan!
huntington's self-described task in the book is to provide "an interpretation of the evolution of global politics after the cold war. it aspires to present a framework, a paradigm..."
the word "paradigm" is loaded and he makes the reference specifically, to thomas kuhn's "classic" (his word) THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS.
STRUCTURE however was not a doctrine, it was not prescriptive. it was descriptive. a friend in the field of physics said kuhn essentially invented the history of science. STRUCTURE shows how scientific thought--it's hard to think of the right verb here to be accurate to kuhn--"went" for example from newtonian physics to einsteinian physics. it did not show how to create an einstein.
now, of course huntington does intend the book as he says to "show us what paths we should take to achieve our goals," but that's not the focus of the book.
eleven of the book's twelve chapters are support for his redrawing of the world map along civilizational lines. the twelveth chapter, the only one that can be called prescriptive, occupies only 20 of the books 321 pages.
maybe it'll be impossible to do this but since what i'm most interested in is doctrine i'm going to try to talk about huntington's "doctrinal" views first, in isolation of whether his proposed new civilizational "structure" of the world is useful.
on page 312 he lists the components of his doctrine:
1.to achieve a greater commonality of interests between the u.s. and europe.
2.to expand the western military and economic alliances to the rest of "the west," "central europe,...the baltic republics, slovenia, and croatia."
3. to encourage the westernization of latin america and it's close alignment with the west.
4.to restrain the conventional and unconventional military capability of the islamic and sinic civilizations.
5."to slow the drift of japan away from the west and toward accomodation with china."
6. "to accept russia as the core state of orthodoxy and a major regional power with legitimate interests in the security of its southern borders."
7. "to maintain western technological and military superiority over other civilizations."
8. "and, most important, to recognize that western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source" of world instability.
there are some things here that are very exciting to me. the whole "philosophy" behind "international federalism" was to apply american federalism's principles of non-intervention in the affairs of its constituent states in the international context.
we should not nation build.
we should only militarily intervene when it's necessary for our national security.
we should not presume that the american way--or the "western" way--is universal.
we need to recognize the disruptive effects of our culture on others and somehow lessen their projection into other cultures by our corporations and business interests. this is a very difficult thing to do and even in the abstract puts our business interest in opening new markets in conflict with local sensitivities.
i have explicitly written on this page of the need to maintain at all costs, including preemptive military strikes, american (note, not "western") military supremacy over every other country and civilization in the world combined.
however, i have written of my vehement disagreement with those who conflate the u.s. and europe as one "interest group," as one civilization as huntington would have it.
because i see america and europe as having different and sometimes conflicting interests i have also vehemently opposed expanding nato as huntington prescribes.
his two "recruitment" strategies, to coopt latin america and "contain" japan from flying off into the chinese orbit are simply at odds with the descriptive features of "clash," that is with viewing the world as a group of seven or eight civilizations that are fundamentally different. as i believe huntington himself explained it in the "clash" article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS, "a communist can become a capitalist, but an armenian can never become a turk."
huntington or huntingtonists can certainly point to this page or that paragraph of the book and say "no, no, no you're not understanding," or "you're taking this out of context," or "you're oversimplifying"--huntington is no fool--,you can point to this subtlety or that nuance but there is just no denying that the paradigm that he argues and supports in 300 pages is a world in which the different civilizations are as immutable as the personal characteristics of their individual citizens. that is, in fact, what makes "clash" such a brilliant work, it gives us a new, compelling way of looking.
so it is simply inconsistent with his descriptive paradigm to argue as a component of doctrine that we should try to peel away as much of latin america as we can, and prevent the sinification of japan.
huntington urges on page 317 that each major civilization should be given a permanent seat on a revamped u.n. security council. in my view this is patent nonsense and carries to a logical if wrong-headed conclusion a specific policy proposal that would follow from the civilizational redrawing of the world map.
to me the most interesting, fruitful doctrinal recommendations that he makes are on the final four pages of the book, in a subchapter titled "the commonalities of civilization."
here he borrows from michael walzer who brilliantly distinguishes between the "thick" normative rules of specific cultures and the "thin" morality that links all civilizations: "...truth and justice" and "'...negative injunctions [like'rules against murder, deceit, torture, oppression, and tyranny.'"
as huntington puts it "instead of promoting the supposedly universal features of one civilization, the requisites for cultural coexistence demand a search for what is common to most civilizations. in a multicivilizational world, the constructive course is to renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities."
wonderful! that's very positive stuff if a bit "thin" itself. i'll have to read walzer's book.
but isn't that the united states? don't we take peoples from different civilizations and "demand a search [from them] for what is common" between their old world and our new world? isn't the whole idea of america that? isn't our federal system in fact one explicitly "accepts diversity" so that we can have "fifty social laboratories" and "seek commonalities" on certainly a "thicker" level than we could among civilizations but still with generous allowance for local initiative and responsibility?
no, says huntington.
at least he doesn't offer american federalism as an example of a nation that has the characteristics that he would like to see in inter-civilizational relations.
SINGAPORE! singapore? FRIGGIN' SINGAPORE!
there, huntington says the government, while wishing to promote traditional "confucian values" (you mean like, for example, american conservatives desire to promote "traditional [judeo-christian] values") there was recognition that these were giving way to western individualism, etc.
"it is necessary, [president wee kim wee]argued, to identify the core values which singapore's different ethnic and religious communities had in common and 'which capture the essence of being singaporean.'"
and what are these instructive singaporean core values that beckon like a beacon from the east:
-"placing society above self"
-"upholding the family as the basic building block of society"
-"resolving major issues through consensus instead of contention"
-"stressing racial and religious tolerance and harmony"
wow. real original stuff there. makes ya want to slap yourself on the forehead and say "why didn't i think of that!," huh?
what the fuck is he talking about. THAT IS AMERICA! THOSE ARE AMERICAN VALUES! THAT IS THE AMERICAN GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT, OUR INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL MODESTY. WE DON'T HAVE TO LOOK TO SINGAPORE FOR A MODEL!
jesus christ.
-benjamin harris
ah, man. just finished CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS (the book). what a disappointment.
i have repeatedly held up the "clash" model as the one through which we should view our conflict with the islamic world. i still hold up "clash" as that model but as to so much else in the book...
first, we need a new DOCTRINE to replace george kennan's "containment" that guided us through the cold war. a doctrine guides future action. it is not so much descriptive as prescriptive. at least it's both.
it is interesting and perhaps telling that while huntington writes of the cold war world view he never mentions the containment doctrine and never once even mentions kennan!
huntington's self-described task in the book is to provide "an interpretation of the evolution of global politics after the cold war. it aspires to present a framework, a paradigm..."
the word "paradigm" is loaded and he makes the reference specifically, to thomas kuhn's "classic" (his word) THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS.
STRUCTURE however was not a doctrine, it was not prescriptive. it was descriptive. a friend in the field of physics said kuhn essentially invented the history of science. STRUCTURE shows how scientific thought--it's hard to think of the right verb here to be accurate to kuhn--"went" for example from newtonian physics to einsteinian physics. it did not show how to create an einstein.
now, of course huntington does intend the book as he says to "show us what paths we should take to achieve our goals," but that's not the focus of the book.
eleven of the book's twelve chapters are support for his redrawing of the world map along civilizational lines. the twelveth chapter, the only one that can be called prescriptive, occupies only 20 of the books 321 pages.
maybe it'll be impossible to do this but since what i'm most interested in is doctrine i'm going to try to talk about huntington's "doctrinal" views first, in isolation of whether his proposed new civilizational "structure" of the world is useful.
on page 312 he lists the components of his doctrine:
1.to achieve a greater commonality of interests between the u.s. and europe.
2.to expand the western military and economic alliances to the rest of "the west," "central europe,...the baltic republics, slovenia, and croatia."
3. to encourage the westernization of latin america and it's close alignment with the west.
4.to restrain the conventional and unconventional military capability of the islamic and sinic civilizations.
5."to slow the drift of japan away from the west and toward accomodation with china."
6. "to accept russia as the core state of orthodoxy and a major regional power with legitimate interests in the security of its southern borders."
7. "to maintain western technological and military superiority over other civilizations."
8. "and, most important, to recognize that western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source" of world instability.
there are some things here that are very exciting to me. the whole "philosophy" behind "international federalism" was to apply american federalism's principles of non-intervention in the affairs of its constituent states in the international context.
we should not nation build.
we should only militarily intervene when it's necessary for our national security.
we should not presume that the american way--or the "western" way--is universal.
we need to recognize the disruptive effects of our culture on others and somehow lessen their projection into other cultures by our corporations and business interests. this is a very difficult thing to do and even in the abstract puts our business interest in opening new markets in conflict with local sensitivities.
i have explicitly written on this page of the need to maintain at all costs, including preemptive military strikes, american (note, not "western") military supremacy over every other country and civilization in the world combined.
however, i have written of my vehement disagreement with those who conflate the u.s. and europe as one "interest group," as one civilization as huntington would have it.
because i see america and europe as having different and sometimes conflicting interests i have also vehemently opposed expanding nato as huntington prescribes.
his two "recruitment" strategies, to coopt latin america and "contain" japan from flying off into the chinese orbit are simply at odds with the descriptive features of "clash," that is with viewing the world as a group of seven or eight civilizations that are fundamentally different. as i believe huntington himself explained it in the "clash" article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS, "a communist can become a capitalist, but an armenian can never become a turk."
huntington or huntingtonists can certainly point to this page or that paragraph of the book and say "no, no, no you're not understanding," or "you're taking this out of context," or "you're oversimplifying"--huntington is no fool--,you can point to this subtlety or that nuance but there is just no denying that the paradigm that he argues and supports in 300 pages is a world in which the different civilizations are as immutable as the personal characteristics of their individual citizens. that is, in fact, what makes "clash" such a brilliant work, it gives us a new, compelling way of looking.
so it is simply inconsistent with his descriptive paradigm to argue as a component of doctrine that we should try to peel away as much of latin america as we can, and prevent the sinification of japan.
huntington urges on page 317 that each major civilization should be given a permanent seat on a revamped u.n. security council. in my view this is patent nonsense and carries to a logical if wrong-headed conclusion a specific policy proposal that would follow from the civilizational redrawing of the world map.
to me the most interesting, fruitful doctrinal recommendations that he makes are on the final four pages of the book, in a subchapter titled "the commonalities of civilization."
here he borrows from michael walzer who brilliantly distinguishes between the "thick" normative rules of specific cultures and the "thin" morality that links all civilizations: "...truth and justice" and "'...negative injunctions [like'rules against murder, deceit, torture, oppression, and tyranny.'"
as huntington puts it "instead of promoting the supposedly universal features of one civilization, the requisites for cultural coexistence demand a search for what is common to most civilizations. in a multicivilizational world, the constructive course is to renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities."
wonderful! that's very positive stuff if a bit "thin" itself. i'll have to read walzer's book.
but isn't that the united states? don't we take peoples from different civilizations and "demand a search [from them] for what is common" between their old world and our new world? isn't the whole idea of america that? isn't our federal system in fact one explicitly "accepts diversity" so that we can have "fifty social laboratories" and "seek commonalities" on certainly a "thicker" level than we could among civilizations but still with generous allowance for local initiative and responsibility?
no, says huntington.
at least he doesn't offer american federalism as an example of a nation that has the characteristics that he would like to see in inter-civilizational relations.
SINGAPORE! singapore? FRIGGIN' SINGAPORE!
there, huntington says the government, while wishing to promote traditional "confucian values" (you mean like, for example, american conservatives desire to promote "traditional [judeo-christian] values") there was recognition that these were giving way to western individualism, etc.
"it is necessary, [president wee kim wee]argued, to identify the core values which singapore's different ethnic and religious communities had in common and 'which capture the essence of being singaporean.'"
and what are these instructive singaporean core values that beckon like a beacon from the east:
-"placing society above self"
-"upholding the family as the basic building block of society"
-"resolving major issues through consensus instead of contention"
-"stressing racial and religious tolerance and harmony"
wow. real original stuff there. makes ya want to slap yourself on the forehead and say "why didn't i think of that!," huh?
what the fuck is he talking about. THAT IS AMERICA! THOSE ARE AMERICAN VALUES! THAT IS THE AMERICAN GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT, OUR INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL MODESTY. WE DON'T HAVE TO LOOK TO SINGAPORE FOR A MODEL!
jesus christ.
-benjamin harris
Monday, June 14, 2004
i'm going to try to start a mini-revival of james fennimore cooper. one of the first truly american novelists he took up writing later in life in a typically pugnacious cooperian way.
disgusted with the quality of an english novel that his wife was reading he threw it down and said "i could write better than that."
he was an imitator of walter scott, not just an admirer. he is famous for "the leatherstocking tales" of which the most famous are "the deerslayer" and "the last of the mohicans."
the writing style of the time was the intricate plot that slowly unfolds with a few well-placed "OHH!" moments when the reader makes the connections followed by a dramatic, deus ex machina ending.
it's the same style as dickens.
in this style the strained deus moments sometimes produce groans in the reader rather than pleasure. "deerslayer" particularly ended on such a note.
mark twain growled rather than groaned. he wrote an article called "the literary offenses of fennimore cooper." i have not read it but can only imagine.
anyway, the LEAST read of the leather-stocking tales, "the pioneers" is one of the most charming, enjoyable books i've ever read. it was also the first in the series that cooper wrote.
a roman a clef, it tells the story of the settling of "templeton" (cooperstown), new york by cooper's family and the many endearing personalities that comprised that family.
the characters are vividly portrayed and cooper has frissons of descriptive greatness, as in the oft-sited passage of two girls awaking on a sunny winter's morning in the wilderness, the sun glinting off the snow crystals on the trees, off the icecycles, off the lake. it is a truly wonderful scene.
too bad "pioneers" never got much of an audience. it is a wonderful little book. i will never forget it.
-benjamin harris
disgusted with the quality of an english novel that his wife was reading he threw it down and said "i could write better than that."
he was an imitator of walter scott, not just an admirer. he is famous for "the leatherstocking tales" of which the most famous are "the deerslayer" and "the last of the mohicans."
the writing style of the time was the intricate plot that slowly unfolds with a few well-placed "OHH!" moments when the reader makes the connections followed by a dramatic, deus ex machina ending.
it's the same style as dickens.
in this style the strained deus moments sometimes produce groans in the reader rather than pleasure. "deerslayer" particularly ended on such a note.
mark twain growled rather than groaned. he wrote an article called "the literary offenses of fennimore cooper." i have not read it but can only imagine.
anyway, the LEAST read of the leather-stocking tales, "the pioneers" is one of the most charming, enjoyable books i've ever read. it was also the first in the series that cooper wrote.
a roman a clef, it tells the story of the settling of "templeton" (cooperstown), new york by cooper's family and the many endearing personalities that comprised that family.
the characters are vividly portrayed and cooper has frissons of descriptive greatness, as in the oft-sited passage of two girls awaking on a sunny winter's morning in the wilderness, the sun glinting off the snow crystals on the trees, off the icecycles, off the lake. it is a truly wonderful scene.
too bad "pioneers" never got much of an audience. it is a wonderful little book. i will never forget it.
-benjamin harris
Monday, May 31, 2004
REASSESSING II
were i president i would be satisfied that the definition of our enemy should be expanded beyond, what in shorthand i have referred to as "al qaeda incorported," to include other people/groups based on (1)the "quantity" of their activities (2)the "quality" of their activities (3) the extent of their influence and (4) if they have practiced violence, even if not against us and (5) the risk in not attacking them, e.g. if they seek wmd.
i would view the madrid and bali bombers as part of a.q.i., so they would be part of the first category of our enemy, not this second, expanded, category of militant islam.
i am thinking out loud here, but having considered the example of hezbollah in "reassessing I", my inclination would be not to include hezbollah but rather to assasinate those thinkers/leaders/clerics who preach the same thing that was taught to obl.
that sounds bizarre, but until shown to my satisfaction otherwise, i would view hezbollah as "an israeli problem." i am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that hezbollah at present does not pose a direct threat to the national security of the united states.
those who teach/write/think/preach however--even if they don't act--i would include in the definition of our enemy because they are what directly inspired al qaeda.
having promised myself in "reassessing I" that i would always stop and think when i took another step, i acknowledge that including propogandists, for the lack of a better description, in my definition of the enemy, is a radical step which will effect all that follows.
we americans don't often punish speech. that prohibition is ingrained in our constitution and our common sense ("sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me," etc.).
still, not all speech is protected. we do not have the right to yell "fire!" in a crowded theater, and like famous examples.
i have inveighed about the teachings of islam many times in this blog. to just remind myself of some that come to mind:
(1) the article written about 1 1/2 years ago in the times magazine on what is taught in pakistani schools.
(2)the al jazeera interview of a 3 1/2 year old girl who when asked her opinion of jews said "i hate them." when asked why, she said "because they're pigs and snakes; when asked where she learned that, "from the koran."
(3) the cleric, so respected that he was part of the saudi delegation that visited president bush in crawford who had just a few months before preached a sermon calling for the enslavement of jewish women for the pleasure of muslim men.
(4)my own reading of the koran
(5) my own reading of "in the shade of the koran."
(6) public opinion polls in different arab societies showing support for obl
(7)the censored video of palestinians celebrating in the streets at the news of the 9/11 attacks.
i am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the current mainstream teachings of islam are THE PROBLEM in our war, just as mein kamph was, as william shirer wrote, the blueprint for the nazism.
there is an old islamic saying that "the first person to reason by analogy was the devil." the point is a sound one. i see many similarities between nazism and islam, including the centrality of a basic text. but i know that our war with our current enemy is different and will be fought differently than was wwII.
shirer wrote in "the rise and fall of the third reich" that what amazed him was how closely nazi policy hew to mein kamph and how mein kamph was ignored or explained away or rationalized when, if it had been taken seriously, the west should have taken the threat much more seriously.
"a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing" is another of those bits of fortune-cookie philosophy that i have to keep in mind, and i do. i aware of my "incomplete" education on the issue of islam and the koran's teachings. but i have been overwhelmed by the consistent message i have gained from the koran itself, commentary on it, articles in the popular press, and the anecdotes i've related above.
as president i would want this question addressed exhaustively by my advisors, but on what i know now, i'm convinced.
the next level we must think about for an expanded definition of our enemy under the concept of "militant islam" is the state level.
we have already expanded it to that level. we have warred against afghanistan with world approval.
we have also, more controversially, warred against iraq.
further, president bush included two other countries, north korea and iran as part of the axis of evil that he defined as our enemies.
i reject the inclusion of north korea for reasons stated previously on this website and i believe that that is consistent with the thinking of most serious people.
but what of iran and other states?
iran is certainly a militantly islamic state and one that is believed to possess or trying to possess wmd.
what of libya, which did directly attack the united states, in the panam 103 bombing?
syria? a long-standing member of the u.s. government's list of states who sponsor terrorism.
pakistan? a nuclear power, a country in which the u.s., with the cooperation of the pakistani authorities, captured the number two man in a.q. and in which obl himself is widely believed to be hiding.
saudi arabia? the home of 13 of the 19 9/11 hijackers and the base for wahiddism, the most radical, violent sect of islam.
-benjamin harris
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