Emmett Coyne's racism column

Emmett Coyne,a good acquaintance, a Roman Catholic priest, and the author of "The Theology of Fear," wrote this linked commentary for a Florida newspaper in connection with the segregation recollections that have gone on over the last week.

One of the books he cited in his commentary was a book about lynchings that included the observation,

"The best part about it was the burning. The hanging kills too quick."

Sometimes looking in the mirror just means throwing up.

computer tune-up

The computer is away for a tune-up. I am trying to work on an old laptop, which has a way of making me feel as stupid as I am.

With luck, the other machine will be home by Tuesday.

break all the mirrors

Strange how, once you start dissecting the particulars of any given group or movement, things are no longer either as assured or pleasant as originally portrayed.

Islamic State is no exception:

Fearing [Mosul, Iraq] might simply empty of civilians, or that fleeing residents may join the fight against them, the Islamic State extremists are imposing tough measures to prevent people from leaving their territory.

And the unwillingness to look in the mirror is hardly limited to groups or movements. Your group or philosophy may be nuts from my point of view, but my group or philosophy remains gilded and serene. It's as if the vampires had ordered all mirrors destroyed and the order was carried out.

Who is not an exceptionalist?

before the light of day

Quieter than tip-toes,
A half-moon slips across
The eastern sky.
Soon it will be dawn.

making sure Americans can't (not won't) vote

Republicans must be in awe of the 140-year-old Supreme Court ruling that bars four million Americans from voting... just think of all those Mexicans!

Iran views U.S. Republicans

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's supreme leader said Thursday that a letter from Republican lawmakers warning that any nuclear deal could be scrapped by the next U.S. president is a sign of "disintegration" in Washington.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the letter a sign of "the collapse of political ethics and the U.S. system's internal disintegration," according to the official IRNA news agency. It was the first reaction to the letter by Khamenei, who has the final say over all major policies.
 The U.S. has been intent on raining opprobrium down on Iran based, ostensibly, on the notion that Iran is working to create a nuclear bomb. U.S. sanctions have hurt the country.

 As far as I know, any (even-American) dissection of Iran's nuclear-bomb capability -- and the country claims to be developing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes -- shows that in order to make a bomb Iran has ten or more years of research and development in order to make the bomb a reality. "Imminent threat" is not credible. And then there's the question of why Israel should go unscathed under the American microscope. Or Pakistan. Or France, for that matter -- a country that derives 75% of its energy from nuclear power AND has the bomb. The selectivity seems to suggest the U.S. has other motives for using Iran as a punching bag. Oil, perhaps. Or Israeli pressure? Or a power base in the Middle East?

Whatever the case, I have a hard time disagreeing with Iran's leader, even if he is just another political liar like the Republicans. The Republican letter -- even if they do hate having a black man in the White House -- is beyond the traditional pale. Traditionally, foreign policy is a no-go zone for responsible lawmakers: If the commander in chief says so, that's it, and the nation deserves better than Republican undercutting and carping. The Republicans really have demeaned the country by pretending they are simply mentioning matters of fact.

There is something almost as fanatical as the Joseph McCarthy hearings of the 1950's in the Republican interference-passing-as-patriotism. And there seems to be no latter-day counterpart to Joseph N. Welch, who interrupted Sen. McCarthy's marauding insinuations of communist affiliation aimed at numerous people with, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Perhaps decency and shame and country are just things of the past and Iran's supreme leader has a valid point.

"Godspell"

Perhaps because I write a monthly column for the local newspaper, I seem to be incapable of getting a "letter to the editor" printed. No one has given me a reason why this should be, so I am left wondering whether multiple publications in a month's time might imply favoritism or my letters are too long or too illiterate ... or whatever the reasoning is. I don't mind if there are rules that cut me out, but I do wish someone would tell me the rules.

The occasion for this whine came yesterday when there was a front-page story about the local high school's selecting a young woman to play the part of Jesus in a production of "Godspell," a play I thoroughly enjoyed a hundred years ago when I saw it on Broadway or in Greenwich Village or wherever. So I wrote a letter which appears to have reached the dust bin once more. I kind of liked the letter, though, so here it is:

To the Editor:

It is a little hard to decipher why it should delight me so much, but I was tickled pink to think that Northampton High School had chosen a young woman for the role of Jesus in the upcoming theatrical reprise of the jolly "Godspell."

True, it rubs my fur the wrong way that religions through the centuries have been so unimaginatively and unremittingly patriarchal in composition. True, women have historically gotten the short end of the social stick. And true, I agree with comedian George Carlin's pointed observation that clearly God must be a man because no woman could ever have messed things up so badly.

But none of that or any of the other socially-righteous argumentation really factors into the delight I felt in the page one story that appeared March 11 in the Gazette. I loved "Godspell" when I saw it on Broadway a lot of years ago. It was a toe-tapper and a sing-along-er and, well, it was like a calliope -- who could vote against it?!

But more seriously, since I live in a Christian culture and feel it my responsibility to know something about the religious culture in which I live, my Zen Buddhist background has always made me feel somewhat sorry for the youthful insistences of the Christian religion. Why, for example, must Jesus be depicted as an impoverished 'white' man when, as the Los Angeles Times once reported, he was almost certainly a sinewy, brown, middle-class fellow who spoke three languages in order to pursue his business interests? Why must Jesus be boxed in in any way? Rich, poor; tall, short; male, female ... is the message changed by any of this when the adherent chooses a pay attention to it?

A female today, a male tomorrow ... ain't that "Godspell?"

You go girl!

alcohol gets another leg up

As if the leading ingredient in the United States' biggest drug-addiction problem needed support, powdered alcohol has won approval here in the U.S. of A.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The maker of a powdered alcohol says his product has gained approval from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

The product, dubbed Palcohol, had received the greenlight briefly last year before the bureau said the label approval had been issued in error. On Wednesday, bureau spokesman Tom Hogue told The Associated Press the issues had been resolved and the product was approved. But Hogue noted that states can also regulate alcohol sales in their borders.

Just add water, I gather.

armor-piercing bullets survive ban plan

OK -- say you are out in the woods during hunting season and suddenly you spy a 12-point buck wearing a flak jacket. You've got a clean shot but ... how the hell are you supposed to bring him down without armor-piercing bullets?

Well, luckily or otherwise, a proposed ban on some types of armor-piercing bullets was riddled to death after more than 50 U.S. senators fronted the objections of Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) enthusiasts.

"If law-abiding gun owners cannot obtain rifle ammunition, or face substantial difficulty in finding ammunition available and at reasonable prices because government entities are banning such ammunition, then the Second Amendment is at risk," the senators said in the letter.

Much as I might wish my country were as civilized as Great Britain, where gun ownership and use is curtailed and even most the cops don't wear guns, still, there are 90 guns for every 100 residents in this land of 319 million, so the chances of civilization are unlikely-to-none, I figure.

But worse than being slightly dispirited by this observation is the whispering thought -- perhaps too extreme for some -- that having access to armor-piercing bullets may actually be a good and needful thing. Not because of any buck in a flak jacket and not for any righteous and enraged opposition to infringing constitutional rights, but because, increasingly, I can imagine a time when the government might deploy the troops under its command against its own citizenry.

Defending profits and barring the disbursal of wealth and bringing a populace to an ever-more-constricted living standard can only be quietly advanced in Congress for so long before someone -- some "kook" -- says, "Enough!" And if enough people agree that enough is enough, there is likely to be a reprise of the bloody labor conflicts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Eventually, the brokers with shot cuffs and lulling orations will make one refusal too many and it the barrel of a gun may become the only recourse.

And they're the ones with the metaphorical and literal flak jackets.

a good liar

Sometimes, even before it lights up the heavens, lightning strikes and there's no doubt about it. And there's no escaping the danger it might pose for others. Like belladonna, its curative nature is equally a deadly poison.

This morning, the summation of my long interest in spiritual life came like curative lightning:

"It made me a good liar."

No doubt about it. And within the flash, there was, for however brief a second, an honest smile. Nothing snarky or slick or "Zen" -- just a warm, hit-the-nail-on-the-head, smooth-without-wrinkles smile.

And of what use is this flashbulb of information?

Absolutely none -- seriously -- though its capacity to poison any 'shared' well is palpable and no fucking joke.

"Beyond perfection" is perfectly OK ... mess with it at your own curative peril.

What a bald-faced liar!

But is there anyone who doesn't enjoy a good smile?

warm wishes ... anonymously

Written in a small, literate, ornate and somewhat shaky hand, I received an anonymous birthday card yesterday. It was addressed to "Adam Eustis Fisher." No one uses my middle name outside some persnickety governmental agencies. The card's sole identifier -- though what identity I wasn't sure -- grew up around the postmark: "Manchester, N.H." Without a signature, the note said, "Happy Birthday, dear Adam" and signed off  with "An admirer and, ever so briefly, an acquaintance." The picture was a pointillist representation of something called "Breakfast in the Open," a calming and decorous scene in which ladies wear long dresses.

Briefly, I wracked my brain for literate acquaintances who might plug into a New Hampshire post office. It was no use. Equally briefly, I wondered why someone conveying a warm sentiment would want to remain anonymous.

OK, it was a mystery and as birthday presents go, mysteries are pretty nice. But the energy or desire to solve them seems to trickle away with the passage of time.

But what it did make me think of was all of the unnoticed or unidentified ways in which anyone affects the people and events in his or her life. Literally zillions of minuscule gestures or words that are overlooked in the effort to pursue more creative and telling efforts. A raised pinky, a quick wink, a half-smile, a narrowing of the eyes, a poorly-sung song, an unheard whisper ... zillions and zillions of small-potatoes expressions that are forgotten or overlooked because to note each of them would be impossible. And yet, even so, others may find solace or fear or love or sorrow or delight or thanks or anger or who-knows-what-heavy-weight implication or importance.

I guess the best that can be said for all this is, "it can't be helped."

"why does time always run forwards...?"

Ran across what I considered a spectacular BBC article/(lecture?) entitled "Why Does Time Always Run Forwards and Never Backwards?" by Adam Becker. It is literate, accessible and a mind-bender whose ramifications I cannot pretend to understand.

But the delight I felt at having found it cannot be overstated ... even if I remain as dumb as I was before I found it.

birthday adventures

To mark my 75th birthday, of course, a solar plane took off today from Abu Dhabi, UAE, in an attempt to fly around the world unaided by fossil fuels. The flight, like the birthday, would be a "first." Likewise it is an experiment whose outcome cannot be known.

Of each, I wonder, "How the hell did that happen?!"

As if to keep things in perspective, the U.S. et al attacked an oil refinery held by Islamic State in Syria. Islamic State, a high-profile enemy-du-jour for the U.S., funds some of its military operations through oil sales in subjugated territory as it marches towards an imagined "caliphate" in the Middle East.

Oh yes, and by the way -- one less oil refinery not only dents Islamic State's income but also means that the over-supply of gasoline that has depressed U.S. prices at the pump, will be 'threatened' and consumers can expect to see prices rise up anew. Oil companies that have laid workers off may be seeing a light at the end of a constricting economic tunnel. Thank God! -- isn't it worth killing a few people if the profit margin is enhanced?! Gas prices in the U.S. are expected to average $2.33 per gallon in 2015 after ranging above $3 per gallon in 2013.

War-for-profit -- the same-ol'-same-ol'  my nation continues to stoop to, in much the same way I have stooped to the passage of time.

And today is the first full day of Daylight Saving Time ... a resetting of clocks to one hour ahead of what they were at the same time the day before. Hence, an hour has been magically "lost" and profit is marginally boosted.

Sorta like birthdays -- you leap ahead only to find yourself strangely at a loss.

a reality check for Netanyahu and the U.S.

On an election tour, Benjamin Netanyahu came to the United States last week and pissed off U.S. President Barack Obama by addressing a joint session of Congress. He was adamantly opposed to any agreement between the U.S. and Iran in the matter of (potential) nuclear weapons (which Isreal has in reality). For nuclear-armed Israel, Iran is an enemy ... and who in the U.S. Congress would dare to question Israel's assertions? These are guys and gals who, like Netanyahu, want to get re-elected.

Anyway, Al-Jazeera raises some interesting questions when it comes to the facts surrounding Netanyahu's assertions.

lawmakers shield broadband profits

Al-Jazeera has a pretty nice take on how legislators side with cable companies to withhold competitive broadband services from the public.

A look at the legislative process in some of these states, however, reveals very close collaboration between the cable industry and lawmakers where the primary goal is simply to protect private companies from public competition.

'between' this and that

Yesterday, a box arrived from Amazon. It was addressed to my older son who has decided he wants to have a camera and take pictures outside the realm of all the magical things a cell phone can do these days.

I was vaguely, smugly surprised by his interest, as if I might have had something to do with it: Around the house are what I imagine are thousands of photos I have taken over the years. I never was what you'd call a good photographer, but I enjoyed it and if one out of a hundred photos was good, that was good enough for me. And now my son was taking up the mantle and maybe I was a contributor ... although, who knows, maybe he'll hate it.

Photography, like religion and Facebook, requires the user to place a barrier between him/herself and the subject. Instead of just a mountain range or flower or family get-together or a baseball game, now there is the photographer, the photographed and the implement with which to record ... subject, object, and both the literal and metaphorical lens through which to document.

None of this is a worry at first. There are the mechanics to learn, the tricks of the trade. It takes practice to calibrate and set things up without thinking -- aperture, speed, flash ... hell, even the best way to hold the camera. At first, it's fun and creative and challenging and a statement of intention. But the longer anyone does it and the more they continue to love it -- even if that love seems to morph over time -- still, like religion and Facebook, there is an interloper between photographer and photographed.

And then there's the mystery.

Years ago, a friend of mine, Bob Stern, once set out to set up a web-based photography site manned by him and a couple of other photographers who Bob considered capable of taking the kind of family portraits that 'came alive.' Bob took good photos when he and I worked at the same newspaper, but I was never able to describe or enunciate the qualities that constituted what otherwise might have been a mundane photo ... turning it into something that reached out and reached down inside this viewer.

Bob tried to describe the direction of the photography business he wanted to offer. And I knew what he was talking about -- the mystery part. I knew he could do it. I knew I, except by occasional accident, could not. Somehow, there was a je-ne-sais-quoi about a good photograph. It was more than just a couple after years of marriage, posing for a portrait. Somehow, their lives and affections and being jumped or slithered out of the photo. It wasn't something to put into words -- the words that, like a camera, separate subject and object. But to say it was just artistic bullshit la-la land was also not true.

What is it that transforms the ordinary photo into something strangely and silently touching? I don't know, which is why I call it "magic" or "mystery." Even if I could describe it adequately, I doubt if I would: Magic deserves better than to be described or understood or locked down in some wise or self-serving explanation.

OK, OK -- if you insist: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." But I belong to the crowd that is inching, bit by bit, towards the silence and savor inherent in "magic" or "mystery."

Once, when I was staring at a painting in an art gallery, and as I was busy being consumed by what I saw, a chirpy-flit gallery owner came up from behind me and began to extol and explain what I was looking at. I whirled around to face him. He must have seen the literally-murderous look in my eye, because he backed away and shut up. I was well-and-truly infuriated. "Asshole!" did not begin to describe what I thought of him and his limpid, simpering, artistic views.

Why must anyone -- me included -- insist on encapsulating, controlling, explaining the heartbeat and blood flow of "magic" or "mystery?" It's tawdry as a $5 hooker, a pastime that reflects poorly on the one who analyzes. And yet too, it is common as white bread.

"God" or "friend," say religion and Facebook, as if, by saying it, anyone might honestly grasp the soft and wonderful liveliness -- the mystery and magic -- of God or friend. Religion and Facebook -- two interlopers that, like a camera, blur the magic and yet seem to be requisite steps in coming to terms with the mystery and magic.

For the religiously-inclined, the Facebook addicts, the writers and the serious photographers -- what are things like when anyone sets down the tools used to address the magic? If you put down such cameras, what happens to the photograph? And how much of an interloper is the individual, with or without the camera?

If magic is magic, what is it like to let it be magic?

Does the magic disappear just because I do?

Is it really possible to place something -- anything -- between this and that?

sticking up for Islam

What follows is what I assume was one segment of a 2013 debate at Oxford University. It was passed along in email and, whatever its flaws (this guy talks at a speed that would do a cattle auctioneer proud), it deserves some reiteration. God bless the Brits and their willingness and ability to debate.

my mother's son

AOL mail (I know, I know -- what am I still doing connected to that laggard!?) is down this morning. It's not that I am expecting any rush of emails, but I have been working on material that is stored there, sifting through photos of the possessions in my late mother's apartment and deciding what to keep and what to dispose of.

Even though there is not a lot of stuff, still, looking at it, there is a a lot of stuff. And those who are doing the heavy lifting in terms of preparing stuff for shipment need a concrete list ... so I am trying to make it ... and now the mail is down.

Yesterday was a "mom" day so to speak. Besides the list of art work, knick-knacks, books, furniture, etc. there were papers of my mother's -- papers and old photos. Looking at the photos of the papers, it was hard to tell what was what, but then it occurred to me, once I get the papers, to donate them to the Smith College library here. My mother went to Smith, wrote an award-winning slice-and-dice murder mystery that did everything but name Smith College and the college already has some of my father's papers, some pretty thin tea from where I sit.

So I contacted the archivist office and put out tentative feelers. I don't yet have the papers in hand, but I know my children are unlikely to see them as a window into their past ... or anyway not at the moment ... so why not store them somewhere? My mother has some status on the writer's circuit (yesterday, when the mail worked, I got a query about translating her mystery into Korean ... 70 years after publication) and so it's not too arrogant to assume someone may be interested in her thoughts and works).

And I will have a phone conversation on Monday with someone from the archivist's office. But the several emails that went back and forth, setting up the phone conversation, got under my skin. The emails I received were dutiful, historical, convinced somehow that my mother was a historical commodity ... and I resented it even as I knew that that's what archivists do.

Archivists, like other people, research, they collate, they put things in 'historical context.' And there was a part of me that resented it ... and made me realize how protective I feel of her person-dom ... contradictory, fragile, smart, infuriating, cruel, loving and with a pair of intellectual balls the size of the Ritz. Something within spoke up for her as, I realized, it spoke up for me: I am my mother's son and, with some surprise, happy for it ... don't try to pigeon hole or make nice or speak in dulcet tones or consign this person to the dust bin of convenient explanation!

"But that's what academics and researchers do," the voice of reason counseled. In fact, that's what people do and that's what I do in some self-serving effort to sum up and tuck away experiences and people in this life. Everything in bite-sized morsels. Everything under control. Everything assessed and explained and shaped and understood. Anything less would be overwhelming and messy beyond belief.

I didn't like the sense that this is what the archivists might do to my mother. Fuck that! And fuck anyone who tried to do it! ... even if doing it was probably all there was in the realm of death. I could feel the cranky and the crabby and the irrational bubbling and burning below the reasonable and reasoning surface of transmitting my mother's papers.

Several years ago, my sister sent me a bunch of genealogical data about our family. I began to read through it and realized after just a little while that I might know the names and professions and offspring of one person or another, but I did not learn what made them laugh or fart under the covers or swoon ... and that's what I wanted to know.

Can the juicy stuff ever be transmitted? Nope.

But that doesn't mean it can't piss me off when it's not there.

Islamic State apostasy

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group's destruction of the ancient city of Nimrud in northern Iraq is part of a systematic campaign to destroy archaeological sites it says promote apostasy.

Some of the world's most precious cultural treasures, including ancient sites in the cradle of civilization, are in areas controlled by the group and at the mercy of extremists bent on wiping out all non-Islamic culture and history.

 Book burnings et al ... this is not how to convert heathen and cement friendships.

my mother's legacy

I am still coping with the bureaucratic fallout from my mother's death on Jan. 11. Among the things to be computed and dealt with are the goods in her New York City apartment. And among those things -- which were kindly photographed and shipped to me here in Northampton -- were various reviews and articles and other paperwork from her writer's life as Helen Eustis.

And one that caught my eye, not least for the headline that came from the late 1940's, was this:

"Girl author ...."

How time flies!

"God bless atheism"

The second of the two videos inserted below arrived in email this morning and put me in mind of the first. The second is a pretty attractive, atheist/humanist rant about the arrogance of the clergy and the first (because I love him) is comedian George Carlin's sassy take on religion as bullshit.





I suppose others might take these videos with a grim and possibly agreeable satisfaction. Not only does the idol have feet of clay, but that idol is capable of quite a lot of cruelty under the cover of kindness.

Those who disagree may squirm. Those who agree my shiver with delight. Having invested quite a lot of time in spiritual adventures during my life, I can feel the squirm and feel the delight. But whichever emotion (agreement or disagreement) arises, there is an exclamation that comes with it: "Ain't that the truth?!" And, often as not, you bet it is from where I sit: It's bullshit; it's the truth.

But one of the things that interests me about droning critiques and droning encomiums is that pointing out the fraudulence or pointing out the high points always seems to stop short. It stops short in the sense that it does not seem to address the human need or petition. If religion is bullshit, for example, what other approach can provide the peace and satisfaction implicit in religion's false promises ... promises that human beings are likely to admire or long for?

I haven't got the energy to jump through the hoops on this one this morning, but the video made me think again that 1. a bullshitless religion or philosophy simply does not exist and 2. some religions and philosophies are very helpful in that they lay out a panorama of prevarication from which the adherent must then winkle out the truth.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. His existence rests on a fragile-to-non-existent footing whose satisfying truth must be winkled out. Religion is a lie from which adherents need to extract a truth that fills the peaceful bill at last. Critiquing and praising and believing can never provide peace, but the bullshit can grow some lovely flowers.

Were there ever two more dangerous and unfulfilling words than, "I believe?"

Was there ever anything worth accomplishing that didn't enter (sometimes extremely) dangerous realms?

Snowden's return?

(Reuters) - A Russian lawyer for Edward Snowden said on Tuesday the fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor who leaked details of the government's mass surveillance programs was working with American and German lawyers to return home.
In Washington, U.S. officials said they would welcome Snowden's return to the United States but he would have to face criminal charges which have been filed against him.

I can hardly imagine he would return without some written guarantee that he could defend himself against the book the United States would be constrained to throw at him. And such a defense would unveil too much of what the U.S. would prefer to keep secret ... for 'national security' reasons.

Still, it must be lonely in Russia. The initial furor of Snowden's revelations has dropped away. Does he or does the U.S. government want to pick at the imperfect scab that has grown over that wound?

weasel rides woodpecker

This photo of a weasel riding on the back of a woodpecker has gone viral after it was posted on social media. It purports to be true.

cat island

At least there is no shortage of protein on the remote Japanese island where cats outnumber people by six to one.

"The Name of the Rose"

Day by day, lately, I am dog-paddling through "The Name of the Rose," a first novel written by Umberto Eco. The book was published in Italian in 1980 and in English in 1983. I first read it when it came out and created the kind of glittering splash that books receive when readers don't quite understand the book but want to jump on the popularity bandwagon.

"The Name of the Rose" is an intellectual handful, not just for the stretches of Latin that go untranslated, but for its intricate syntax and apparently profound knowledge of Roman Catholic Christianity in 1327. The book is pegged to a couple of deaths at a monastery and to the investigator sent to sort things out... William of Baskerville ... no kidding.

Why I keep reading this book is not entirely clear to me. I don't recommend it. It's 500 pages long (length of a decent novel is a plus in my lexicon) and weighs too much to hold up for long. The sentences are nothing short of filigreed. Since the scene is set in a monastery, naturally the place is full of cat fights, all of them couched in theological references and intellectual sword-play. Characters try to out-virtue each other at every turn while all the time cloaking themselves in a requisite humility. There are asides into cooking and magic and printing and animal husbandry tart exchanges about the role of laughter in a proper religious outlook.

I think what I find tantalizing -- and why I don't just grab some juicy, biff-bam-boom, tits-and-ass, page-turning mystery off the shelf -- is the implicit longing to be part of something greater so that, by extension, greatness or peace or heaven or whatever the local brass ring is will touch the participant/desciple/devotee/well-versed: Join the group; join the widely-held-belief; learn to applaud and disdain in unison ... life will be better.

What is that all about ... being party to something "greater?" Learning the lingo, ingesting the moves, talking the talk, making erudite support structures or questioning those structures. What's so off-putting about having a personal view that is just that -- a personal view that does not seek out struts and props and nuts and bolts and invariable cat fights? I suppose the coziness of social interaction is part of it. And another part is learning from others. But the line between learning and relying is peculiar and fraught. Is the price worth the blowback -- comfortable accommodations within a cozy asylum that can overwhelm a scene which rests on personal preference or understanding? How would it be if religion did not rely on "religion?" What's the matter with your point of view -- even if it agrees with some cheering, cat-fighting majority?

On these cold winter days, I suppose it's nice to have a muffler. But shall that bit of coziness guarantee that anyone is not, as always, naked and that that nakedness is hardly unique?

what is admirable

Perhaps because I have never really felt admirable or assured in my own sense of worth, I wonder in what way I might like to feel admirable after my death. What benchmark of man or woman might I like to be held in the same breath with or by what yardstick raised up?

It is a queer question.

Not by pyramids or parenting or fear or greed or beauty or intellect, I think. Nor even spiritual conviction, though I have dipped my toe in that pond. If I might choose people I admired and would not especially mind being corralled with, Marcus Aurelius or George Orwell or my one-time shrink Jack Gallahue come to mind as admirable men whose passions seemed to address the facts on the ground, but hitching my star to theirs seems a bit childish and perhaps wildly inaccurate.

I guess I would hope not to have done too much harm, but beyond that I cannot think of the flash of individualized lightning by which I might retrospectively have caused others to go "ooooh!" and bestow laurels.

I never invented a light bulb, never scaled a notable precipice, never amassed much wealth, never touched base with the elusive "fifteen minutes of fame." By this, I reckon myself as a  blob of cookie dough, but it seems reasonable to ask what flavor it was.

I guess I can be grateful that I was never Kim Kardashian or some other air head, but my own air-head-dom is probably not all that different ... though I have my fingers crossed.

Are others more at ease with this "admiration" business -- even the ones bound and determined to show how adult and at ease they are? I really don't know.

Strange to think that everyone might like to be "admirable" in one way or another and yet ... well ... what is admirable?

chinks in Islamic State's armor?

There once was a joke whose lead-in I can't remember, but whose punch line was that the little bird flew in ever-decreasing circles until finally it flew up its own asshole and disappeared.

1. Today, there is a Reuters story about ISIS threatening operators of the Internet social medium, Twitter. Twitter has been one of Islamic State's most reliable propaganda tools, even if the service has deleted especially-grisly transmissions.

"Your virtual war on us will cause a real war on you,” one online post by Islamic State supporters said, according to Buzzfeed. "We told you from the beginning it's not your war, but you didn't get it and kept closing our accounts on Twitter, but we always come back."

Irrespective of ISIS irritation and threats, the wider world is unlikely to react kindly to one of its favorite media being threatened or diminished. This in itself may be a propaganda loss for Islamic State. It's like threatening mom.

2. One of Islamic State's allegedly Koranic requirements is that it capture and hold land. I think this is in aid of proving the righteousness of its cause. Today, the Iraqi army launched an attack on the IS-held town of Tikrit, possibly as a prelude to similar future assaults.

The Iraqi army, backed by Shiite and Sunni fighters, has begun a major effort to retake Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit from ISIS militants, a likely prelude to a move on the Islamist terror group's Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.

If the Islamic State 'must' hold territory as a means of proving its legitimacy and/or moral higher ground, what happens if that land is denied to them?

Is there any virtue or righteousness which, if held tightly enough, won't fly up its own asshole and disappear?

institutionalized ignorance

Imagine a world in which books -- those behind-the-times means of transmitting knowledge and understanding -- were eradicated due to budget necessities. In Western Australia, the possibility seems a little closer to reality:

A lot of people don't have access to the internet, a lot of people don't have the ability to afford to download books ... or training or any other programs so it's important that we do keep our local libraries in our smaller towns, and towns in general in regional WA....

An Internet-infused present may see the hand-writing on the wall as far as books are concerned. And maybe they're right. But I also smell and leap forward in the rush to institutionalized ignorance.

practicing medicine

Yesterday, on my favorite mainstream TV program, "Frontline," I watched a segment entitled "Being Mortal." I don't recommend it to anyone not planning to die and, come to think of it, I don't recommend it to anyone who does.

Oflate, dying is one of those au courant topics about which everyone from smarmy help freaks to scalpel-wielding doctors can offer sage and caring counsel in an effort to ameliorate whatever it is that needs to be ameliorated ... and it still doesn't work... or maybe it does; I don't know. I do know that "no one is getting out of here alive."

Anyway, I don't make a habit of reading yet another article or viewing yet another video about an au courant topic that is oh-so-au-courant. I guess I watched this one because I was short of mind candy and it was, after all, "Frontline."

The show was, by turns, touching and tender and full of tears. There was some interesting stuff and not the least interesting was the pickle physicians are put in... a pickle I have had a hard time trying to convey to the various doctors I see: It's nice to fix things, but it can also be a sign of neurotic fixation when there is no capacity not-to-fix things. "I don't expect you to fix what cannot be fixed," I sometimes want to say. But then I don't because doctors seem to be so dependent on their Johnny Fix-It persona.

In med school, like the Marine Corps, I imagine physicians-in-training have it ground in: Make it better; winkle out and apply the chemistry/pills; improve and with luck eradicate the offending realm -- from broken leg to brain tumor. That's your job and this benevolent Marine Corps ingests the training. But however expensive the training, doctors among other health professionals, are not trained in the fine art of failure.

A human being who cannot fail is not quite a human being yet. A mainline addiction to success is hardly a successful way of being. At a certain point, wanting to succeed or insisting on it simply compounds the problem, adds to the discomfort, and leaves the practicing physician abandoned in a world where success is ingrained at the expense of another perfectly possible capacity: Failure.

And of course the patient can compound the difficulty. Many don't listen, can't hear or are damned if they want to die. They pile up the doctor's plate with their cries for mercy, expressions of denial or anger and whatever all else ... what the hell, they aren't going to the doctor in order to fail!

The "Frontline" show was nice. A bit too white for my taste -- no one lived in unpleasant squalor or was less than well-educated or was subjected to machines that were less than perfectly sanitized -- but still it was nice because death is a shoe that fits all feet, even the feet of the well-heeled.

But one of the things I came away with was an imaginative image of suburban white whine gathering at what a doctor might be heard saying by way of introduction, "I practice medicine."

Yes, the patient goes to the doctor in order to be "cured." S/he too has had the expectation ground in over time -- doctors cure stuff. But a patient may, perhaps, be forgiven: S/he is not a doctor with an expensive education  in the rearview mirror. For him/her to believe is more understandable. And the doctor treads a fine line (when the doctor is any good) between encouraging trust and retailing honesty... an honesty that begins at home and only later can be doled out to the patient.

"Practicing medicine."

It can have a smooth, sleek feel to it -- a pretty kool pick-up line at an upscale get-together. But besides whatever self-aggrandizing component, I like it because it aptly describes what doctors do ... PRACTICE. It may be satisfying to "succeed" and a bummer to "fail," but that is the nature of practice.

Practice anyway and, rather than imagine all prayers have been or could be answered, pray a little. Setting aside smug humility or sparkly superiority ... practice.

What else can any of us do?

before the cheering a jeering

This morning -- a bitingly-wet-cold one -- no particular topic tops the interest hit parade except perhaps a wispy sense that there really doesn't need to be a number-one ... things seem to get around to each other without any pushing or shoving -- irrespective of caterwauling concern or profound research ...

And hence...

It's understandable that, after a friend sent me $100 to put towards payment of the looming new-boiler bill, the two of us might have a longish telephone conversation about fire arms. The $100 bill had arrived wrapped in an advertisement for a Solo pistol whose barrel length is 2.75 inches. My friend had dug the ad out of his garbage and stapled his monetary gift to it before sealing an envelope and adding a stamp.

A nice gift in a somewhat bizarre wrapper. 2.75 inches?! How accurate could this pistol be ... and from there, the a segue to the usefulness of rifling in weapon barrels ... and from there to the 'surgical' talents of Civil War doctors whose capacity for speedy amputations was just about the only qualification necessary to attain the 'surgeon' status ... and from there ... well, things could go anywhere ... as for example to the white elephant captured in Myanmar ... the magic and majesty attributed to an animal ... an attribution so much easier than showering similar accolades and riches on some impoverished child ... to wondering why it is that dead people, whether princes or paupers, all seem suddenly 'willing' to be called by their first names. The same seems to apply to royalty, as if repeatedly calling him Prince William might besmirch the phantasmagoric benevolence royalty hopes to be invested with ... not least as a means of camouflaging the harshness that rulers rely on... maybe out of a 2.75-inch barrel.

Wispily, wispily ... sometimes it's strange to think how the word "important" ever gained linguistic purchase. This leads to that leads to this leads to that. Nothing saying there can't be preference and weighting assigned, but still, this leads to that and it's probably got some importance to acknowledge the fact before the cheering and jeering begin.